sol 125 OOF ( Out Of Focus )OM montage of OM33:...

sol 125 OOF ( Out Of Focus )OM montage of OM33:

After calming down a bit, I started thinking about the OM OOF problem and noticed that the substrate of this image is one of the whirly-ride strong magnets ( here is the sol 121 version.) Then I noticed the streaks indicating that the soil had been scraped quite hard in the cell and then I thought about the sample wheel operation and - aha!

OK, maybe the OM design flaw is not in the binding of the substrates to the sample cells, but instead is in the mechanism for scraping off excess soil.

IF a large, hard particle gets wedged between the knife and the cell a great deal of unantipicated verticel force would be applied to the cell - perhaps enough to break the substrate loose. And once the substrate is loose then particles can get under the substrate - forcing it away from the sample -- causing the images to be OOF.

I wonder why the tests of the sample wheel mechanism never revealed this problem?

Other sol 121-125 comparisons are here.