Other than the Iapetus encounter, I noticed that flybys of Mimas (108,000 km), Enceladus (189,000 km), and Rhea (153,500km) are mentioned. Is anything planned for these flybys? I would normally just assume no, given their proximity to the Huygens mission (they are all on the 16th). But considering the Ta and Tc information sheets didn't mention the Tethys non-targeted flyby on Ta, I am surprised that they are mentioned at all. Given this, is any imaging planned?
Ted
The one I know for sure about is Rhea, where we should get a good view of its giant ray crater (rays are giant, the crater itself maybe fairly small)
Great to hear. Will this include any of the wispy terrain?
Another great link with the orginal voyager image with that crater.
http://planetary.org/saturn/rhea.html
Wasn 't sure if it was in the Voyager images, nor do I remember the lat and lon of the ray crater. I was just told that the images taken in January will show that ray crater.
I managed to figure this out myself. North seems to be roughly up in this image:
http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/view.php?id=506
Assuming this I made the attached preliminary cylindrical map by adding the Cassini data to areas of lower resolution Voyager coverage. I only very crudely corrected for varying illumination. The big crater at upper left is visible in exactly the same location (but at lower resolution) in the Voyager based map so this map seems to be correct. Longitude 0 is at the center of the map. The next step is to render this thing to see what Cassini will image...
^Amazing!
Have you had time to do the same to dione using the recent images?
Interesting...
I hope this means they are doing imaging.
06:16 07:23 Cassini flies by Enceladus
The flyby will be at a distance of 189,000 kilometers (117,000 miles) and a speed of 10.2 kilometers per second (22,800 miles per hour). Voyager 2 got 50% closer than that, but with the difference in quality between Cassini''s and Voyager's cameras, the Cassini images will be more informative.
Not to mention that at Voyager's closest approach the scan platform was stuck and it didn't do any imaging at all!
I have noticed that there have been no raw images since those taken January 1. Is this due to the Titan encounter. I know it was going to stop at some point, but I didn't think it was that far out.
Why has no imagery from Jan 1 to Jan 6 when they turned the instruments off been posted?
Ted
Good answer
Exactly!
Does next week mean Sunday or a week from today?
Hopefully next week means next Monday (January 17). Actually I'm not surprised of this, yesterday it was almost impossible to access the Cassini website for several hours.
Meanwhile, here are some appetizers. First Mimas as it should appear near closest approach. The only problem is that I don't know when it will be imaged.

And here's Enceladus. As before, I do not know when it will be imaged, hardly near closest approach though since it occurs at a very high phase angle. The view near midnight looks nice though.
Note that the field of view in these renderings is 0.175 so Enceladus' relative size is two times what it will be in the actual images.

Have you done a rendering of Rhea for this orbit?
And finally, here's Rhea. These look a bit ugly since I used a preliminary map I did that contains data from a low-res Cassini image but I didn't remove the seams.
The bright rayed crater discussed earlier in this thread isn't visible until several hours after closest approach (i.e. not until the following midnight) so I assume Rhea will be imaged at at least two different times.
The field of view is 0.7 degrees, i.e. two times the FOV of Cassini's narrow angle camera.
Next project: An animation of the February Enceladus flyby.


Went threw my bookmarks and I made a point of bookmarking latest 500 images just in case. (Last Week
)
Keep an eye out for some pics since the Hyper Link was disabled on the Cassinni Page.
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-list.cfm?browseLatest=1
Cool! Thanks. I thought they had really taken the raws down.
Ted
ISS imaging of Mimas, Rhea, and Enceladus is now on the ground.
You guys will love this view of Herschel
Jason, do you know if the "raw images" section files are updated by a person or it is an automated process?
New image of Mimas
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS07/N00026509.jpg
look here if raw image link is still not available at cassini homepage
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-list.cfm?browseLatest=1
Thanks Decepticon for putting the link up
Wow check out the groves on Enceladus
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS07/N00026570.jpg
Another of Mimas
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS07/N00026551.jpg
Check out the frosted craters on Rhea
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS07/N00026548.jpg
Enceladus again
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS07/N00026534.jpg
Enceladus with one crater all by itself
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS07/N00026481.jpg
I think it's safe to say we can write off the idea of Europa being 'the smoothest moon in the solar system' in all the textbooks.
( yeah yeah, I know, the other hemisphere of Enceladus has craters...
)
I'm making color composites now for these...
Wow, this hemisphere of Enceladus looks much more interesting than the 'Voyager 2 hemisphere' which will be visible during the close flyby next month. Almost no craters are visible and those that can be seen are small.
Fortunately this hemisphere should be nicely covered during the targeted flyby in March.




To be honest - using RGB - there's little to be gained from a single b'n'w image
Slightly more on Enc using cl1-ir1 / p120-grn / p120-UV3
Cranking the levels a LOT with that - on the bottom image - you can see some sort of linear feature between two different types of surface very clearly - I dont think this is an imaging artifact - has this been seen before?
Doug
Enceladus will join my Most Favorite moon 2nd to Europa.
This moon may be going threw the same process as Europa.
I was hoping to see some Ice Volcanos!
Maybe you will in February. If they exist, they may not be huge, or they may release flood "lavas" rather than plumes. Jason, do you know if VIMS took any data this orbit?
Here is my color attempt for Tc Rhea. After producing RGB color, I merged it with the clear filter image to use for grey, to mitigate the effects of spacecraft motion.
More Rhea images to come. The images on the ground so far have a resolution ~3 km/pixel. There are 5 sets of observations left, with the next set having a resolution of 860 m/pixel.
They're identical to the top image - just stretching the brightness 'down' in photoshop
The more you take it down - the more obvious the deliniation between the two possible areas becomes.
Doug
I look forward to it. Jason, I will have to try your filter suggetion, I just used R G B2 plus a clear image.
Unfortunately, my time for image processing is going to be less. Tomorrow I begin classes. I am teaching seven classes this semester (yes, they really need to hire someone new but there is no money for that so we are all teaching overloads). So I should be quite busy. I have Friday totally off though, which is nice.
The next set of images should be down shortly.
Latest batch of pictures have been posted.
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-list.cfm?StartRow=1&cacheQ=1&browseLatest=1&storedQ=860260
Link on the Cassini site is still down though.
Wow, these are incredible!
Can't wait for next month's Enceladus flyby. Looks like some sort of canyon on the termniator.
Well, off to class!
Both are great! ^^
In the newest images of Rhea, there is an interesting long linear feature (as with the ones on Dione and Iapetus):
http://dazza101.blogspot.com/2005/01/rhea-in-unprecedented-detail.html
Larger version:
http://photos1.blogger.com/img/112/2250/1024/26544_50_reg.jpg
There are seven raw full-disk images which show the linear feature here:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-list.cfm?StartRow=65&cacheQ=1&browseLatest=0&storedQ=879709
Some are better than others, but it is in all of them, the last one in sequence probably the sharpest (N00026544.jpg). I wish there were some closer shots. As far as I can tell, none of the closer shots that are posted so far have this particular feature in view.
Whether this is a ridge as on Iapetus or a groove as on Dione I'm not quite sure. If not an imaging artifact, then we have yet another similar oddity. What is it with these icy Saturnian moons and such features?
CICLOPS now has it's own enhanced version of this view of Rhea (the trailing hemisphere it turns out), with the linear feature clearly seen, but no commentary on it:
http://ciclops.lpl.arizona.edu/view.php?id=739
Also a good TPS update here:
http://www.planetary.org/news/2005/cassini_images_rhea_mimas_enceladus_0201.html
Thoughts, anyone?
TPS has a Icy small moons update!
I find it funny that the cassinni site does not have this info.
http://www.planetary.org/saturn/cassini_tour.html
March 12 2008 encounter with Enceladus altitude = 100 km
Great Updates of Icy moons Maps!
Love this webpage.
http://laps.fsl.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=1343
Can't wait for a closeup look at Enceladus
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/image-details.cfm?imageID=1352
Is this a shot of Tethys? The caption says the camera was pointed towards "sky" unfortunately.
http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/raw-images-details.cfm?feiImageID=31678
I know Tethys has one huge impact crater "Odysseus"..... The crater in the image looks very unusual, there appears to be another crater in the centre.
Sorry, I forgot to label my last post. It is Mimas.
In http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/images/raw/casJPGFullS09/N00029466.jpg of Tethys, what is the moonlet on the left, just above the rings?
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