Wayne Stewart wrote:
The source of the error is found in the photograph's derived values.
Two images of the same landform:

E1201762 ( http://www.msss.com/moc_gallery/e07_.../E1201762.html
)

and

E1301971 ( http://barsoom.msss.com/moc_gallery/.../E1301971.html
)

were published by Malin Space Science Systems with the same error.
Each has an erroneous north azimuth. The published north azimuth
values rotate the landform 180 degrees from its true orientation. (Or
said more literally: the azimuth values are correct, only the images
have been rotated.)

That's an overstatement to say these were published in error. They are
clearly marked as south polar stenographic projections. It is also an
overstatement to presume that this "error" results in the optical
illusion. It's just not that simple. The eye is quite easily tricked
by craters when it assumes an particular lighting direction. I have
seen this occur many times when the light comes from just about any
angle. In fact, I can make the illusion come and go just by looking at
the image long enough.

As for the rest of your post I wonder why you posted it to
sci.astro.amateur. It doesn't really seem appropriate for this group.
Regardless it's all rather dull.

The recent extremely underreported "smoking gun" -- now that's
interesting: http://barsoom.msss.com/mars_images/moc/2003/11/13/

How Sky & Tel failed to note this in their weekly news bulletin is
beyond me. It is a very important find.

Clear skies,
Greg

--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools Software for the Observer:
http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html

Skyhound Observing Pages:
http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html