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Posted by: Sunspot Oct 14 2004, 10:32 PM

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-details.cfm?feiImageID=23747

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-details.cfm?feiImageID=23741

Images from the wide angle camera are nearly filing the frame again:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-details.cfm?feiImageID=23617

Posted by: Bjorn Jonsson Oct 15 2004, 03:38 PM

Yes, these Saturn images are getting great and much better than anything from Voyager. I'm surprised there have been no spectacular false color closeups at the Cassini website - in addition to looking spectacular they show varying amounts of clouds and different cloud heights so they are not meaningless works of art.

However, the Iapetus images are extremely frustrating. Something is wrong with the pointing so Iapetus is outside the field of view in almost all of the images. And these are images that would have been a bit better than the best Voyager 2 images. Hopefully this can be fixed in time.

Also the automatic contrast stretch applied to the images as displayed at the Cassini website makes things even more frustrating since it almost completely ruins the images where Iapetus is visible. Things are probably not going to get really fun until the PDS files get released next summer.

Posted by: Sunspot Oct 16 2004, 11:47 AM

Yikes........you're right, it looks like something went wrong with the pointing during the Iapetus observations.

Only a couple of fairly decent pics of it

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-details.cfm?feiImageID=23503
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-details.cfm?feiImageID=23597

Maybe the next batch of RAW images might give us a better look at Iapetus

Posted by: Sunspot Oct 17 2004, 08:49 AM

Yep, a much better view of Iapetus

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-details.cfm?feiImageID=24280

Posted by: Sunspot Oct 18 2004, 01:52 PM

....latest batch look worse.

Posted by: OWW Oct 20 2004, 09:47 PM

In the last observation ( oct 17th ) Cassini apparently just managed to keep Iapetus in frame:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS04/N00022423.jpg

Hopefully this pointing error will be fixed before the Titan flyby... Or is it maybe just a matter of Iapetus' location that is not known accurately enough?

Posted by: djellison Oct 21 2004, 09:15 AM

It's the later - these observations will allow them to tighten up the orbital params for Iap. so it should happen in the future

Doug

Posted by: volcanopele Oct 21 2004, 06:23 PM

This encounter also would give us a better mass estimate for Iapetus. Because of our current uncertainty, the Iapetus distant encounter distance on December 30 had to be raised to ensure that Huygens doesn't pass to close to Iapetus.