The Saddle in 3-D

Several frames from a rotation movie NEAR Shoemaker took on September 19, 2000, from an orbit 100 kilometers (62 miles) above Eros, were combined to create these 3-D views of the saddle region. 3-D images made using the red and blue color technique are called anaglyphs and must be viewed through red-blue 3-D glasses.

Because of the combined rotation of Eros and spacecraft motion, the images were rotated to create the 3-D views. The images all show the same area but use two movie frames separated by increasing amounts to give greater 3-D depth (from not enough to too much). The first image in the upper left has no depth; the image at upper right is made from adjacent movie frames, while the remaining images are separated by 2, 5, 10 and 15 movie frames.

Separate stereo images (full size): Left, Right.

Built and managed by The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, NEAR was the first spacecraft launched in NASA's Discovery Program of low-cost, small-scale planetary missions. See the NEAR web page at http://near.jhuapl.edu/ for more details.