Yeah, I would say it's a bit enhanced, rather than false-color. It's great for showing the subtler variations. This is probably a little closer to natural, but not really accurate, just by reducing the saturation:

Thanks ugordan for the insights. I missed your referenced VIMS post...very interesting stuff. I need to study up on gamma correction. As an aside, no offense intended toward CICLOPS, especially regarding the icy satellite mosaics. The only important colors there are the sickly green of envy (VP-that's your mosaic of Enceladus from the Feb. 2005 NT encounter? Mine still looked like a Hockney collage after two years of struggle!) and the cool auzere of the blue screen of death.

Jaw-dropping, amazing work, everyone! I've been waiting for these perspectives for years. One question for ugordan specifically regarding the natural color views: Looking at the difference between your processed images of Saturn and JPL's, the pronounced blue tones in the northern hemisphere seem much more muted in yours. I know next to nothing of the characteristics of the filters or the technical aspects of combining them, but what would we actually see If we were there? I've had many questions from friends about that unearthly (and once-unsaturnly) blue, as it gives the place an unfamiliar look to them. I'm inclined to guess your processing is more accurate, especially as you've cranked out hordes of wonderful color products that JPL seems averse to releasing. Anyways, congrats to Ian, yourself, and others in this thread. I will certainly have a difficult time kicking you off of my desktop.

I'm not so sure we're going to lose any observations of the western end of the equatorial ridge (i.e. White Mountains). Judging from the graphic included in the CHARM presentation from January 2005, which seems to be a preliminary ISS footprint map for the September encounter, the highest-resolution mosaic looks like it's targeted right for those lofty peaks, unless something has dramatically changed in the planning process. Combined with the aforementioned low relative velocity of the flyby and lower-resolution global coverage before (high phase) and after (low phase) the best observations, it would seem that I1 will be one of the finest encounters in terms of coverage for an icy satellite. Remember, too that the global mosaics at Tethys, Dione, and Rhea were taken a good distance farther away than 1600km. I do really hope that a second targeted look can be achieved on the next extension though, if the spacecraft holds up.

The Padua Linea mosaic in wide-angle context (11 October 2005):

Golden oldies, in anticipation for the 21 November encounter...if there was one. Here's the 15 December 2004 high-res view, with a few enhancements thanks to Mr. Albers and Celestia:

"Did National Geographic ever cover Galileo at Jupiter?"

I believe it was in the September 1999 issue, the one with the Brietling Orbiter on the cover.

Just for good measure, here's a vastly improved (over my embarassingly disjointed original) manual stitch of the regional observation from the September 2005 encounter. The large, deeply shadowed basin that appears at the terminator in the 23 July image is central to this mosaic. I love how the July image has the three big basins visible (Melanthius, Odysseus on the limb, and the near-vanished one entering darkness).

Hello,

Back from the Digital Grave again. Here's an alternate take on the 23 July Tethys mosaic:

Just a heads-up for the rev after next...it looks as though Cassini will have an outstanding moderate-resolution view of pretty much the whole fracture system, as well as additional gap fill coverage to the north. This view of Dione on 24 July 2006 from Celestia's reference trajectory is from a distance of 260,000km, the field of view narrowed by a factor of two for visibility.

Full context:

Here's an update on the D1 encounter last October, looking at the context for crescent and Saturnshine observations following closest approach. Thanks to Steve Albers for your astonishing maps and Chris Laurel for Celestia.


Amata mosaic:


Broad context:

High resolution frames:

Crescent mosaic (apologies to um3k for first attempt):

I might live to regret this.

Rev 22 Saturnshine mosaics:

Rev 22 Sub-Saturn mosaics:

I used to have a poster of the Voyager 1 Saturn montage on my wall when I was a kid. It seems like it's time for a replacement:





This is comprised of the work of several forum members. Enceladus and Phoebe-volcanopele(NASA/JPL),
Hyperion-Malmer, Rhea and Tethys-ugordan, Mimas-Ian R, Dione and Iapetus-me(both pseudocolor), Saturn, Titan, Epimetheus, Telesto, and Pandora-NASA/JPL.

Hi, guys. I've come over to the dark side. You made an addict out of me.

Sol 762 Pancam autostitch:

Analgyph:

Here's a Rev 21 Tethys grab bag:

RGB composite overlay(crude):


Analgyph:

Spherized(thanks, Phil!):

Basin:

Perspectives of Tethys, 2004-2006(representative):

Tethys through the clear filter at 153,000km:

Here's a colorized portion of the high resolution mosaic of Castalia Macula and the north dome from E11 data:

14ESDRKSPT01 colorized

Castalia Macula was indeed the most comprehensively imaged feature on Europa's surface, viewed on orbits G1(1.5km/pxl, low phase), E11(300m/pxl, color), E14(20&60m, 1.4km/pxl, color and stereo), E17(222m/pxl), and E19(103m/pxl, high phase oblique color). Here are the E11 and E19 observations, excluded from the earlier post.

11ESCOLORS01-01

19ESCOLOR01

The E11 mosaic of the western edge of Argadnel Reigo was the largest regional-scale view obtained during Galileo's primary mission, covering a vast expanse of terrain including Mannann'an and the partially obliterated Belus Linea. This will be incorporated into a larger mosaic including areas imaged on E17.

11ESREGMAP01 greyscale

My apologies for the mistake...from the pointer plot graphs, it looked awfully close to the intersection. Thanks as always for the insights. The imaging team deserves the greatest respect for making the most of a trying set of circumstances, and in most cases, bringing back the impossible.

Rhadamanthys Linea, a feature that that seemed to be comprised of a string of isolated dark spots at low resolution, was targeted for a better view on E14, E15, and E19. It looks as if Rhadamanthys is the "one that got away" as far as the pointing of the camera went, with the single-frame E14 shot missing it entirely and the E19 mosaic catching it only in the corner of each image.

19ESRHADAM01

Context view

E15 mosaic with G1 color

14ESVLOFOT01

Thanks for all the excellent links and information. I've posted the abstract for the Icarus paper regarding Castalia Macula in the Argadnel Reigo thread. There's a fascinating suggestion as to why it would make a fine landing site for a future mission.

I feel compelled to jump in on this one. It almost appears that Galileo was abandoned from a PR standpoint in terms of imagery. Hundreds of stunning photographs of Europa were returned, most from the multiple extended missions. Several large swaths of terrain recieved excellent medium-resolution coverage, any many small-scale features were covered with tightly defined footprints(perhaps impossible for Cassini) that reveal some of the most freakishly contorted landforms in the solar system. Bob Pappalardo mentioned that it had been planned to release the mosaics constructed by the Galileo SSI team over the internet, but the effort fell by the wayside. He has also pointed out that MTF(modulation transfer function) filtering has not been run on Galileo's images, which would sharpen them considerably. Color data is limited but certainly usable. More than enough material is available from this truncated but very sucessful mission to fill an attractive, well produced coffee-table volume, or a comprehensive website for that matter. It is a mystery to me why, considering that the dataset is but a tiny fraction of those produced by Mars missions, more of an effort has not been made by NASA to visually turn the Galilean satellites into actual worlds for the public.

Edit:
mcaplinger: a website is under construction, albeit slowly, and should be up by about mid-March.
Decepticon: yes, at least until carpal-tunnel syndrome sets in or Europa thaws out.