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Posted by: angel1801 Aug 2 2006, 02:35 PM

There will be a chance to image new unseen territory on Rhea (centered at 25N, 300W) at a distance of 164,000km on August 17 at 8:00UTC. It will be a good chance to view the dione like ridges at about 1km/pxl.

Posted by: Bart Aug 2 2006, 10:36 PM

This post reminded me of the impending conjunction. Will that be affecting science operations this Rev? If so, how?

Inquiring minds and all....

Bart

Posted by: angel1801 Aug 4 2006, 10:30 AM

It won't. The solar conjunction period starts on August 4 and ends on August 10.

Posted by: scalbers Aug 23 2006, 11:19 PM

Glad the images made it in after the solar conjunction. I have one now added to my map to help extend the coverage in more northern latitudes. The latest is posted at this URL:

http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#RHEA

Posted by: Bart Aug 24 2006, 07:48 PM

It's always great to see those blank spots getting filled in!

Thanks, Steve, I love those maps of yours!

BTW, it looked to me like the Mimas & Dione images may have covered some new territory (or at least improved coverage). Is that true?

Bart

Posted by: angel1801 Aug 25 2006, 07:06 AM

On August 17, there was improved south polar and high southern latitudes views of Dione.
Also on July 23 there was imaging of poorly seen areas in the moons northern hemidsphere.

For Mimas, I think they have filled the gap right at the south pole on August 16.

Actually we will get a really good lood at Mimas on November 20. And this will include the high southern latitides and a big gap at the equator at about 20W longitude.

Posted by: scalbers Aug 26 2006, 03:31 PM

Hi,

To investigate these possibilities, I looked at the recent Mimas flyby in a Celestia animation with the current map and it seemed like any gap filling was very near the limb in the Cassini images and hence difficult to use, particularly at the moderately low resolution?

Dione images from August may be a possibility. It is a judgement call whether higher resolution images at high phase represent an improvement over lower resolution images at lower phase.

Perhaps the July Dione data will also be worth a look, any particular images in mind that would be useful to add to the map? Thanks in advance.

Posted by: MarcF Aug 26 2006, 05:20 PM

Hi Steve,

Here is an old partial Cassini picture of Dione taken on December 2004 and being part of the "Amata mosaic".
It's localized north of the classical mosaic which can be found everywhere.
It seems not to appear in your Dione map, but may be it's not usable since it covers only a very small region, and it has a bad viewing angle.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS06/N00026465.jpg

I really like your maps.
I'm just frustrated that no new feature names will be assigned soon (IAU seems to have "more important" topics to discuss !!!).
Thanks for sharing your work on the net.
Marc.

Posted by: volcanopele Aug 26 2006, 05:48 PM

That's not it at all. It takes a while to create base maps from which to chose what features need naming, suggested names, and get those names provisionally approved. The group working on Dione nomenclature also has to deal with Enceladus, Mimas, Tethys, Rhea, Hyperion (though that one will have to wait, I think), and Iapetus nomenclature. Not a small task!

Posted by: MarcF Aug 26 2006, 06:33 PM

Sorry Jason,

My comment about IAU was just a joke.
It was just an allusion to the planet definition story which in my mind goes a little bit too fare.
I of course understand that the naming procedure takes time.
However, for Phoebe and and Titan names were very rapidly proposed (even if not officially assigned).
Marc.

Posted by: tedstryk Aug 26 2006, 06:40 PM

I could get it done much more quickly if they would leave it up to me.... Ted Stryk's Crater on Dione 1, Ted Stryk's Crater on Dione 2 .... Ted Stryk's Crater on Dione 14,294..... Ted Stryk's Geyser on Enceladus 1, etc. Don't worry Volcanopele, I'll find you a secondary crater somewhere on Mimas.