ISS managed to cram in some amazing Saturnshine coverage complementary to the mosaic, and by complementary I mean an awesome Rorschach-blot split right down the terminator. The crater in the middle is Dercennus, with the Clusium Fossae to the northwest and Eurotas Chasmata to the northeast.

Color and annotated versions with north at the top. The location of the pole is a guesstumentation, as it was Terra Incognito until a few weeks ago. I'm sure someone can correct it.

The September 3rd encounter really had some jaw-droppy stuff! Here's the monster mosaic, with 22 clear-filter footprints using one of the WAC frames for control. Steve, this one is unusually precise for me so parts of it might be useful for your map, at least until the professionals release the definitive version:

That's a keeper, Astro0!

The oblique view of the tectonic cliffs has to be one of the classic images from this mission. Absolutely jaw-dropping, and a human-scale landscape to boot. I expect to see this one widely published for years to come.

I imagine that some careful compositing, a la Tempel 1, might make for some beautiful mosaics with patches of high resolution. The varied perpectives of the lower-resolution global frames are very nice too.

First Helene images arriving:

Saturnshine

Facepalm. Your OTHER west. The map looks great, much smoother! Thanks for considering my suggestion. I haven't seen the movie, but I see Maximillian Schnell from "The Black Hole" is in it. There is no east or west beyond the singularity, is there?

Bjorn: I can't use the adjectives I want to here to compliment that animation. Hendric: If no one beats me to it, I have a very large scale-comparison series in the works. Just waiting for Helene.

Thanks so much, VP...been waiting for those impatiently. Very cool.

Always so much to catch up on...fantastic DEM perspectives, Bjorn. That's a scene I've had in my imagination for ages, finally made real. Your map is beautiful as always, Steve. I'd like to suggest possibly using images from the 28 June 2007 pass for detail west of Herschel and the transition to the coverage from August 2005. The fine fractures and/or crater chains show up much better, and it seems to beat the resolution of the partial Voyager coverage. I'm reposting Gordan's excellent color version for reference. You're all awesome. Belated welcome to Adam too!

ugordan's Mimas 28/06/07:

If you're looking for global cylindrical maps, they're unavailable AFAIK. Shape models might be a different story. Several of the worlds you've listed have been too poorly resolved for detailed mapping (Annefranke, Calypso, Dactyl, Metis, Pan) , imaged very noisily (Puck, Larissa, Nereid), or imaged by radar (Geographos, ect.) Steins and Borrelly might be decent candidates though.

This forum has a few gifted contributors working on this subject...Phil Stooke has produced excellent maps of Eros and other irregular bodies, and arguably the best existing maps of Larissa, Proteus, and many other nonspherical worlds. Ted Stryk has managed to tease out subtle details from imagery that was otherwise practically useless. John van Vilet has contributed beautiful shape models and surface textures for Celestia, and probably the best existing cylindrical maps of Phoebe and Hyperion.

Welcome to UMSF, too! Hope this was somewhat helpful.

Likewise, nprev! We've had sporadic computer access and internets for weeks, and it's always good to be back.

Those eye-shaped "islands" of terrain appear all over the place...the pair to the southwest in the big mosaic have fascinating trapped chunks of cratered terrain. Emily mentioned the ring-shaped polar feature in post 136, and I wonder if they are different stages of the same process, or merely a case of pattern recognition.

These are the seven highest-resolution frames post-encounter, cropped from the big mosaic. The spectacular vertical shot of the "canyons" is in the foreground at lower center right, covering part of a nearly obliterated fractured crater in the transition zone. The reprojection of the images to the perspective of the big mosaic adds to the sense of landscape ,so I've flipped it.

More late additions to the party, but nothing can top those plume images! This is an attempt at the big mosiac of the southern leading hemisphere. The changes in spacecraft position make this one dirty, but it does show the extent and detail...very much looking forward to VP's clean orthographic version. Three small gaps have been plugged with lower-resolution frames from late in the encounter.

Hello all...I've clearly missed a lot recently! Incredible stuff.

Better late to the party than never, so here's a mosaic of the tectonized terrain crudely reprojected to the perspective shown in W00061506. I've left out the two disconnected southern frames and the stereo images.

I really like the idea of the work posted at UMSF appearing in a printed compendium of some sort. I agree with Doug that the economic viability of such a project at this point would be extremely limited, and that the copyright issues may be substantial. Nonetheless the contributions of UMSF members are already a very significant body of work, with appearances in technical documents, broadly visible public websites, books, and the cover of Aviation Week. It might be very interesting in the near future to publish a volume documenting the participation of the amateur community (and general public) in planetary exploration via image processing and rudimentary analysis, especially in a very visually accessible and artistic sense. This forum in particular has fostered very productive communication between members of the planetary science community and amateurs, and has allowed some otherwise unlikely characters (myself included) to experience a genuine sense of somehow adding to the growing body of human knowledge of these many worlds. It might make for a pretty compelling story! Taken in conjunction with details of the technological advances since 1995 in software and computing power that have brought formerly impossible image manipulations within reach of anyone with a laptop, I think we might eventually have something marketable...and something that will draw people into greater interest and participation. Cool idea, maybe give it some time.

Yeah, I'm always impressed with the precision with which these observations are carried out, especially with Enceladus. I think that the fact that Rhea is a relatively slow-moving target helps. Four of the five observations here are six-footprint mosaics, and none of them have the gaps apparent in flybys of Tethys or Dione for example.

On a side note, the similarities between Titania/Ariel and Rhea/Dione in comparison seem especially prominent with these images. Also, the linear feature in the south visible in the last view appears to be a scarp based on this and other images. What say the experts here?

I've been following this story with astonishment and dismay. Such infinitesimal odds, and so much potential for harm! Just a few weeks ago I was watching WALL-E with my son and explaining why I thought it was funny when they ploughed through the mass of satellites when leaving Earth. Doesn't seem so funny now. I stumbled across this lovely image while working on another project today, and it seems appropriate.

Here's the closest view at full resolution, taken at about 98,000-100,000km:

I've finally gotten around to piecing together the five mosaics from the 2 February pass. The fractured terrain is seen in excellent detail, and under better lighting conditions than the August 2006 encounter. It also looks like some new polar territory is covered in the first couple of mosaics.

I have beer and/or whiskey pouring out of my shcnazz, odoug. Note that mandy does't claim to agree/disagree with said propsition, as it would reuslt in wavefunction collapse (or the appearance thereof). Ten to the hundredth djellisons will branch off of this thread putting the smackdown on the deviation if I fail to redirect, and rightly so, resulting in infinite additional threads. (trying to hold my water now ) Thanks for the adknowlgement nonetheless. You made my night. Seriously folks, no more on this subject in this thread, please (my bad) or Ms. Tethys will be in trouble.

Redirection commences in 3/2 2/1 1/0....

For the Rose and the Tower! Say thankya.

This isn't from this year, but it does look at some of the same territory. It's a mosaic of high-resolution regional images from the 27 June 2007 encounter, and includes some of the linear features under discussion in this thread. A more accurate version is included in the latest official map and atlas, but I think this is an improvement over the mosaic posted in the earlier discussion (this is for your compliment, Craig



*sigh* Time to get back to other obsessions. I plan to spend the evening with Mr. Jameson bawling my eyes out over all those Everett-Interpretation copies of myself that got run over by cars tonight on the way home from work, to the tune of "Fake Plastic Trees". Look both ways before you cross the streeet, loves.

Yar!

Thanks for the replies and discussion all. The CIRS ride-along from the recent periapse is down and presented side-by-side here. I think these might add something to Steve's map!



This is above my pay grade, but I think those lineated features look a bit too fine and fresh to have resulted from a really big impact (a la Odysseus).

Aye, I'd be inclined to agree on most accounts. I'm still curious as to the why of the apparent global dichotomy though. There are quite a few small linear features I'd be hard-pressed to explain away as random, and they do seem to be concentrated in the lumpy places ( I think they might be crude baby versions of the seemingly infinite tiny crosscutting fractures on Dione somehow). There are similar small-scale linear marks on the surface of Rhea, as you've surely noticed.

I notice you have some affinity for crater chains, Odoug. ( I think you're right about Rhea too). I personally see basins a lot myself (usually illusory), but your perception of linear features seems to bear out a lot of the time. I look forward to other views too.

Weigh in, folks. Is Tethys doing lines?

Dear ones, I leave with you an image I think conclusively proves that Melanthius is a double impact structure (9-11-08), and also with a riddle for Dr. Stooke. Why does this hemisphere that features Penelope and its neighbors have the appearance of relatively smooth plains pitted with deep craters while so much of the rest of Tethys has a much more lumpy and ravaged look? Dione seems to have similar regions.




There will be a global-view poster from images taken this year in the thread later as well.

Goodnight, all!

Yes, there's always more...the portion of the Ithaca Chasma that wends it's way over the north pole past Telemachus has been hard to make out. The distant opnav images have done a fine job this year on a couple of occasions.



Here's another view of the northern latitudes from the 25 September flyby, also cosmetically enhanced. I'm pretty sure Steve used these images in his recent map.