Yes, this is the discovery image from 1966:



http://66.249.91.104/translate_c?hl=en&...an/decjanus.htm

According to the American Geophysical Union's publication entitled Pioneer Saturn, here are the details regarding the object(s) discovered orbiting Saturn by Pioneer 11:

1979 S1 - imaged by the photopolarimeter.
1979 S2 - discovered by the charged-particle experiment.
These were later determined to be the same object, also later observed from Earth and called 1980 S3. This was later named Epimetheus.
________________

1979 S4 - This is a different object, co-orbital to S1/S2, also later seen from Earth and called 1980 S1. This went on to be offically labelled Janus.
________________

Some of the information on the page that Phil linked to seems to contradict what I've stated above. However, since the paper in the Pioneer Saturn journal was written by Brian Marsden, I'm pretty confident of its accuracy.

Ian.

Pioneer Rock was also imaged by Pioneer 11, orbiting in the region where Janus and Epimetheus are today.

I'm 99% certain that Epimetheus is the moon in question, although I'd be interested to know what Phil has to say about it.

Ian.

This is very cool:

http://www.astro.lsa.umich.edu/~monnier/Lo..._image3crop.jpg

I think a "thank you" poster, signed by the collective members of UMSF, would be a great gift for the New Horizons team. It could be decorated with some of the images from the Jupiter encounter, such as Exploitcorporation's great colour composite of Io and Europa.

This is the issue - October 1997:



http://www.shopatsky.com/index.asp?PageAct...amp;ProdID=1000

That's truly remarkable Don!

I remember with fondness the cover you produced for Sky & Telescope in the wake of the Pathfinder mission. As I recall, it combined a digital model of the lander and Sojourner with a large panorama of the landing site, which was projected onto a 3D relief map of the surrounding terrain.

I still have that issue somewhere - the cover stayed in my head for weeks after I originally bought it.

Ian.

Just a little something for the photo album:

Fascinating stuff Ed!

Getting a submission accepted for APOD is one particular ambition that I would love to achieve one day...

Very well done indeed, Oersted!

Good stuff!

I'm not sure if this is the correct thread, but here's a 'blink' animation comparing the USGS Galileo Io map with the New Horizons map by Jason and Phil:



Ian.

Here's an interesting video on the subject of Triton's plumes:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2361275885502809184

It was either Janus or Epimetheus, with the safe bet being the latter.

Thanks everyone for the kind words - the cheques are in the post as I type!

Stu, you are more than welcome to use ANY of my pictures in ANY of your talks. Good luck, and I hope it goes well tonight (I just hope this reply isn't too late).

Ian.

Finally, here's a sample of the full-size image:



Due to technical reasons, I can only post the mosaic at 50% its original size (in other words, my computer is too crap to handle the full-res image in its entirety!).

Ian.

The mosaic includes all of the moons interior to Dione, apart from Daphnis and Epimetheus. Here are some excerpts from the composite with each moon labelled:









The same view courtesy of Mark Showalter's Saturn Viewer 2.5:

I started working on the following mosaic on the 22nd of February, and just over 10 days later, it is finally completed. At times it was an extremely frustrating process indeed; however, as each tile fitted together and more of the finished composite was revealed, I grew ever more excited.

Now it is with a big sigh of relief that I can finally reveal Saturn as she presented herself to Cassini on the evening of the 20th of February, 2007:



I dedicate this image to all the great folks here on UMSF who have greatly enriched my enjoyment of space exploration.

Enjoy!

Ian.

Thanks for the encouragement, Stu!

I have to say that it is incredibly satisfying to hear of the reaction that you got from those children - hopefully some of them will have been encouraged by your talk to delve more into the subject afterwards. Who knows - perhaps some of them could become future members of UMSF!

This Outreach work sounds really valuable, and who knows just how many people will become permanently interested in Astronomy due to your efforts.

Cheers,

Ian.

Here's a sneak-peek of the mosaic in its current unfinished state:



And here's the same view from the Solar System simulator:



The finished image will show Prometheus, Pandora, Mimas, and at least one of the co-oribitals.

Ian.

I'll try not to, Emily! In the meantime, a little extra Saturn for you:





It's my fault, Jason - I forgot to correct it before saving the JPEG. Luckily, I still have the PNG backup.

Cheers,

Ian.

You never know, helvick, you never know...

It wasn't dilo, but I've since bought a new dictionary!

Here's the first part of the new mosaic:

There's yet another absolutely gorgeous full-colour mosaic in the latest batch of Cassini raw images:



Due to the motion of the spacecraft during the imaging sequence, a seamless composite would be incredibly hard to do, unfortunately.

Ian.

Eeek!

I don't know if the center frame was taken with a lower exposure, or if the presence of the rings in the other frames caused the JPEG stretching to white-out Saturn itself. When this mosaic hits the PDS, I reckon the whole of the day side will have atmospheric detail visible (I'm prepared to be proved wrong, mind you!).

Since the frustration involved in building the previous mosiac nearly caused me to headbutt my keyboard on numerous occasions, I think I'll leave this particular monster for someone else to do!

In the meantime, here's a rather pretty view of the translucent C ring, with the ring shadows and limb visible in the background:

Take a bow Phil!