alcaray wrote:
As to the release of color, no, it did not come up. Though, my take on it is that they are still in a (painfully extended) calibration period.

Alex writes:
Well if Bob Clark can ask the same question in multiple discussion groups, then I guess I can post the same response I gave him:

"Actually, from what I understand the "non-release" has a more prosaic explanation. I'm sure this will not assuage those who fervently believe that someone is "hiding" data, but I've been told that the reason there have been no VIS color images released is simply because so few have been
acquired. Moreover, of those that have been taken, all have required
extensive processing and calibration (e.g., flat-fielding to take out
shading effects)."

An update since I posted that message in ISSDG a couple of weeks ago: the THEMIS team recently presented some color images to the various teams involved in selecting landing sites for the 2003 MER mission. Also, I suspect that new imagery (apart from the daily B&W THEMIS VIS releases) will be presented in the next couple of weeks when the Odyssey team holds another press conference. At any rate, since the mission has only been in its primary mapping phase (designed to last one Martian year) for a few months, it may be a bit premature to expect huge data dumps, especially before the first peer-reviewed papers have been published.

Alex R. Blackwell
University of Hawaii