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Posted by: Juramike Jul 25 2008, 05:44 PM

CICLOPS Looking Ahead has information on the upcoming Titan flyby:
http://ciclops.org/view/5142/Rev_78

Posted by: Juramike Jul 29 2008, 03:41 AM

T45 Mission Description now available:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/products/pdfs/20080731_titan_mission_description.pdf

Posted by: titanicrivers Jul 29 2008, 03:44 AM

The T45 mission discription is now up on the Cassini-Huygens home page! http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.cfm
ZaZooks!!! Looks like Mike has scooped me on this one!! His link is the the actual pdf file of the T45 mission; the above takes one to the home page so I'll leave this post up as its not completely redundant!!

Posted by: nprev Jul 29 2008, 04:39 AM

Mike is the Chuck Norris of Titan. You do not, ever, scoop Mike; Mike scoops you!!!

(For those of you who may not be familiar, Chuck Norris is an iconic karate film and TV star here in the States, and there's a recent Internet fad about him. Visit http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com for a host of Norris 'facts'. Warning: Some are at least PG, but a lot are pretty funny!)

Posted by: titanicrivers Jul 29 2008, 05:10 AM

Will be of great interest to see if the 2hr before closest approach ISS show cloud bands just east of Hotei Arcus as was present in the T44 flyby (check the raw images on Friday or Saturday of this week). If so would make one wonder if Hotei Arcus is generating the clouds (via orographic lift or even via local methane atmospheric enrichment if indeed Hotei is an active cryovolcano).

Posted by: volcanopele Jul 29 2008, 08:11 AM

No imaging of Hotei is planned at 2 hours before closest approach. This is a gravity pass.

And orogenic clouds... if someone can prove to me that orogenic clouds ACTUALLY exist on Titan, I will eat an entire tofu turkey.

Clouds on Titan - OOOOOOOOOOOO

Mountains on Titan - /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

Posted by: titanicrivers Jul 29 2008, 12:21 PM

Thanks! I stand corrected! Here's one for you ...

.

/ \

(volcanoes on Titan)

Posted by: Greg Hullender Jul 29 2008, 03:53 PM

QUOTE (volcanopele @ Jul 29 2008, 12:11 AM)

Clouds on Titan - OOOOOOOOOOOO

Mountains on Titan - /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

Hmmm. Looks like they cut the imaging budget some for the extended mission.

--Greg :-)

Posted by: imipak Jul 29 2008, 06:59 PM

My impression was more like...

CODE

  Clouds on Titan - OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
                   /  /  / /  /    /
                    /   / /   //
                   /     /    /   / 
                    /    /   //    /

Mountains on Titan - /\ /\ /\ /\ /\ /\

Posted by: titanicrivers Jul 31 2008, 02:22 PM

I see the Titan RAW images have begun to arrive!

Posted by: Juramike Jul 31 2008, 03:59 PM

Rough mosaic of inbound images (?) from the T45 Flyby. I tried to line up the "surface" features.

I think that might be Hotei Arcus/Xanadu at center near the terminator.

-Mike

Posted by: titanicrivers Jul 31 2008, 10:01 PM

The T45 inbound Titan map 2hrs before closest approach from the mission description is shown in 1) below. Hotei arcus is in range of both the WAC and NAC
The solar system sim for the same epoch is shown in 2).
As the terminator is to the right on the early images posted above these likely are inbound photos.

1)

2)

Posted by: volcanopele Jul 31 2008, 10:10 PM

Once again, no Titan images were planned for 2 hours before closest approach. The closest before closest approach were taken 12 hours before C/A, not 2 hours. The mosaic Juramike posted is from that MONITORNA001 observation.

The flyby description document just shows example views of Titan at various intervals during the flyby, but do not represent that are actually in those instrument fields of view.

Posted by: titanicrivers Jul 31 2008, 11:54 PM

QUOTE (volcanopele @ Jul 31 2008, 05:10 PM)