This is my attempt at animating the nine CB3 frames taken on the 21st:

http://imgur.com/a/MqRLr

2017-03-20 Titan — A Double Take


2017-03-21 — Cassini Snaps Zero-Phase Titan

Looking at the PDS data for this medium-range flyby of Atlas, I realized a number of frames at the start of the sequence were taken against the backdrop of Saturn's night-side. Thanks to the faint illumination of the cloud decks with ring-shine, an extreme contrast stretch of the images reveals the moon's equatorial bulge and southern hemisphere in profile.

Thanks for the correction, Phil — I've gone back and corrected my posts with the correct info.

Another medium range view, bore-sighted on the moon's north pole:



Edit: Thanks to Dr. Phil for pointing out my north/south confusion.

Medium range view, showing the full extent of the Encke Division.

Incredible new views of Pan, and its razor-thin equatorial bulge!


North is to the upper-right.


Staring face-on at the north pole.

Edit: Thanks to Dr. Phil for pointing out my north/south confusion.

Hey there, Daphnis!

The G-ring as seen by ISS on the 4th:

With the new year comes changes on Titan: just look at the size of the cloud bands girding the upper latitudes!

This feature has intrigued me for some time, ever since I spied it on a medium range shot from 2013:



Nicknaming it the 'Bullseye', I spotted it again on the VIMS mosaic taken during the T-114 flyby; this is a crop of an undistorted version of PIA20016:



Finally, here is our region of interest with the topographic map (courtesy of Ralph Lorenz, et al) lain over the ISS basemap PIA20713:



It would appear that the 'Bullseye' is possibly a depression, perhaps even an ancient impact crater that has degraded over time. It may also be analogous to Hotei Regio, which is suspected to be a dry lake bed, harking back to seasonal conditions that favored temperate latitudes. Who knows?

Very neat trick, J. I wish I had thought of that!

Conversely, stacking the frames brings out subtle details in the shorelines of the lakes and within the bright evaporite:

This two-frame mosaic from December 20th appears to show a large wisp of cloud in the vicinity of the 'kissing lakes', aka Abaya Lacus:

Now it looks like we can see clouds on the border of Saturn's north polar region (NPR) casting shadows!

Cassini got a good look at Enceladus just a couple of days before embarking on the ring-dive orbits:


2016-11-27 --- ENCELADUS QUATRO UNCROPPED


2016-11-27 --- ENCELADUS QUATRO

The Coronagraphic High Angular Resolution Imaging Spectrograph (CHARIS), is a new instrument designed by Princeton to observe exoplanets, and works in conjunction with the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. It has also returned a quite astonishing image of Neptune:

http://www.universetoday.com/131903/prince...d-nearby-stars/

Tethys from 367,700 kilometers (228,500 miles), in an image produced with NAC images filtered through IR, Green, Clear, and UV.



For comparison, here is Jason's Celestia preview screengrab:

http://www.ciclops.org/media/me/2016/8436_20209_1.jpg

There is indeed such a map, courtesy of the USGS: http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/images/t...rthpole_new.pdf

A full set of maps can be found here: http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/Page/TITAN/target

Way to totally trump me, Jason! Awesome work, sir. And is that hazes and/or fog I see hovering over Ladoga Lacus?

I've finished the mosaic (Hurrah!):

https://www.amazon.co.uk/clouddrive/share/o...share_link_copy

Only three moons are visible, as far as I'm able to ascertain: Epimetheus (just above the right ansa, near Saturn); and Atlas and Prometheus (at the tip of the right ansa). Pan is too faint to be detectable, and Janus must be just out of frame.

Nice discovery Phil, and sad news about Ewen Whitaker.

How is the second edition of your Lunar Atlas coming along?

Thanks fellas! I'm endlessly fascinated by Titan, so I'll no doubt continue to cook up image products even after Cassini has plunged into Saturn (the PDS data is so much nicer to work with).

And this is a stack of ten ratioed frames:


2016-10-30 Titan STACK of TEN

I've processed 36 frames of Titan taken over a period of three hours; numerous clouds are seen forming and dissipating

http://imgur.com/a/i5VS6

Getting there .....

http://s21.postimg.org/u091ixct1/Glutton_Mosaic_WIP.jpg

Thanks Jase!

Good question about the non-visibility of the rings draped by Saturn's shadow. Any infill light from reflected ringshine on the night side of the planet must indeed have *some* effect, but these compressed JPEGs effectively snuff out any such marginal signal, I reckon.

Just to check, I stacked the four available raw frames for this footprint and got nada: