Printable Version of Topic

Posted by: Decepticon Jun 26 2005, 03:23 AM

I believe Rhea and Enceladus get some good views on this flyby. Not sure if both will get coverage.

maybe VP can clear this passes observations.

Posted by: Bjorn Jonsson Jun 26 2005, 12:26 PM

Rev010 closest approaches:

Mimas 257,000 km
Enceladus 405,000 km
Tethys 183,000 km
Dione 537,000 km
Rhea 244,000 km
Titan 877,000 km
Hyperion 1.322,000 km

Nothing interesting 'satellite-wise' this time.

However, mid-July (Rev011) will be interesting:

Mimas 381,000 km
Enceladus 172 km (July 14)
Tethys 509,000 km
Dione 340,000 km
Rhea 180,000 km (great view of the south polar region)
Titan 1,005,000 km
Hyperion 1,429,000 km

Posted by: Toma B Jun 26 2005, 12:49 PM

Bjorn Jonsson where do you find these precise information on flyby distances???

Posted by: tedstryk Jun 26 2005, 12:59 PM

Tethys 183,000 km

The Tethys flyby looks not-too-bad. I wonder if they took pictures.

Posted by: Bjorn Jonsson Jun 26 2005, 01:10 PM

There are some SPICE kernels out there that I downloaded. These files contain information on Cassini's trajectory, satellite orbits etc. I then ran these through a program I wrote to calculate things like closest approach distances, viewing geometry etc. I might generate a big table for the entire tour one day...

Regarding the Rev010 Tethys flyby, the phase angle was rather high (123 degrees) at closest approach.

Posted by: tedstryk Jun 26 2005, 04:35 PM

That would be good for multispectral coverage.

Posted by: volcanopele Jun 26 2005, 11:39 PM

There are no targeted observations of any icy satellite in Rev 10, as far as I know. There maybe some small satellite images, but that's as far as I can tell. Don't forget, OPNAVs can always be useful, but they usually aren't taken a few days +/- periapsis.

BTW, Bjorn, where are there publically available spice kernels?

Posted by: Phil Stooke Jun 27 2005, 02:31 AM

Looks like we have Rhea and Prometheus to come from this orbit, judging by the raw image pages with (as yet) broken links... maybe tomorrow.

Phil

Posted by: Phil Stooke Jun 27 2005, 02:10 PM

Here's the new Prometheus image. This is a composite of five frames. I'm a bit uncertain about the orientation, but I think we are looking at the trailing side from the south, and I've rotated it so north is near the top, Saturn to the left. (might be wrong).

Images like this might not look like much but they are absolutely essential to determine the 3D shape and volume of the satellite (we need as many different views as possible), and from that the bulk density, porosity etc. Of course high resolution for surface morphology will also be very nice if we can get it!

Phil

Posted by: Phil Stooke Jun 27 2005, 03:44 PM

... and here's Rhea from the new sequence, a composite of three images to remove some of the JPEG artifacts, plus a bit of creative processing.

Phil

Posted by: volcanopele Jun 27 2005, 05:03 PM

Nice! I'm sorry I had completely forgotten about this Rhea stuff. It was much below the resolution of data we have gotten before on this region and data we will get next month so I didn't think much of it. Obviously, this is a zero phase angle observation sequence of Rhea looking at the south polar region and ray crater region. In the upper left on Phil's version at about the 10 o'clock position, you can see Tirawa in profile along the limb.

Posted by: Phil Stooke Jun 27 2005, 05:36 PM

Will we be seeing a release of the processed versions of the Titan south pole observations from the last orbit?

Phil

Posted by: volcanopele Jun 27 2005, 06:10 PM

hopefully, very, very, very soon...

EDIT: not today...

Posted by: Phil Stooke Jun 29 2005, 12:57 PM

New Tethys image...

Phil

Posted by: abalone Jun 29 2005, 01:09 PM

.....And here we have the first lake...
..and Epimetheus... and the best photo yet of Pandora.. all now on the Cassini homepage

Posted by: Decepticon Jun 30 2005, 01:59 AM

Tethys crater is a whopper of hit.


I can't wait to see this close up. Until now most images of this crater have been not so great.

Posted by: Bjorn Jonsson Jul 2 2005, 01:15 AM

At ftp://naif.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/naif/CASSINI/kernels/spk/

FWIW these are the files I'm currently using (some of them may be redundant):

pck00008.tpc
naif0007.tls
sat138.bsp
sat164.bsp
981005_PLTEPH-DE405S.bsp
000331R_SK_LP0_V1P32.bsp
000331RB_SK_V1P32_V2P12.bsp
000331R_SK_V2P12_EP15.bsp
010420R_SCPSE_EP1_JP83.bsp
041014R_SCPSE_01066_04199.bsp
041210AP_SCPSE_04329_08189.bsp
050505AP_SCPSE_05119_08222.bsp
041219R_SCPSE_04199_04247.bsp
050105R_SCPSE_04247_04336.bsp
050214R_SCPSE_04336_05015.bsp
050411R_SCPSE_05015_05034.bsp
050414R_SCPSE_05034_05060.bsp
050504R_SCPSE_05060_05081.bsp
050506R_SCPSE_05081_05097.bsp