nice

Thanks! It should be fixed by now.

I was inspired enough by Habukaz' graphic to complete my own and post one or two on my blog:

http://stereomoons.blogspot.com/2015/02/ce...-into-view.html

here is a rendition with Tethys images substituted in at comparable resolutions.

Thank you Habukaz and DrShank for the comparison images.

Already looking forward for the image for this day, but yes, it will take until February 19 before we actually get out of the "speculation phase". =)

Nice. A visualisation of the phase was a crucial thing missing from the last sphere in my illustration.

Speaking of which - I know it was speculated by some that Ceres could have a tenuous atmosphere. I don't know where that kind of speculation is now (except from the detection of water vapour by Herschel), but I guess the 25 February, 1 March and 10 April images could shed some light on this?



I'm placing my bets on that the images taken today will show whether or not the linear features are real. You can (just barely) see them in last week's raw images.

I keep checking back for the new image, nothing yet. I was hoping to find a schedule of DSN communication with Dawn, which I didn't find, but did find this nifty (near) real-time tracking tool:
http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

You're welcome :-)

(I'm part of the team at JPL responsible for DSN Now)

OPNAV3 hasn't been acquired yet. Imaging won't until later this evening, MST. From looking at Celestia, the observations times are (keep in mind that these are just the dwell times, the actual time frame when images are actually being taken is likely shorter and in the middle of these times frames):

Footprint 1: 2015-035 02:13-07:21 UTC
Footprint 2 (centered on Ceres): 2015-035 07:30-10:47 UTC
Footprint 3: 2015-035 10:56-14:35 UTC

The HGA is pointed toward Earth between 2015-035 15:53-2015-036 07:44 UTC (again, it might not be downlinking that entire time)

So maybe some images will be released Thursday, at the earliest?

Nicely done. A neat feature to add in future might be to tie it in with the schedule of activity, something like clicking on an antenna brings-up the schedule of current and upcoming transmissions.

Exciting times! I wondered if someone from JPL could give an indication of how it works with totally new images like these. Who is the first person to see a new image, are there dozens of people gathered round a single monitor as someone decodes the messages? Or is it done privately with a select few in case of embarrassment due to errors?

Very much looking forward to seeing more of Ceres:)

That recalls my year working on Magellan as a tech assistant. one of my jobs was to unroll the prints from each new orbit of Venus as the latest data were processed and printed and report any gaps or flaws in the processed data. These print strips were about 4 inches wide and i foget how many feet long (more than 10 Im sure). I may have been the first to see the largest impact crater Mead, for example. but that is how the data first came down. the global mosaics of Venus we now recognize came a few weeks later after multiple orbits had accumulated.

Dawn is active on the DSN now.

http://eyes.nasa.gov/dsn/dsn.html

Hi MichaelJWP,
Thanks for your interest. As part of the Framing Camera team, I can tell you that there are three levels of criticality:

• regular operations, such as those in cruise and typically the second half of each observation phase, are only monitored off line. The data pass completes, we get a notification that the raw packets are on the ground, a robot downloads from the server, processes and uploads to the server again. Regular business.
• important operations, such as most of the optical navigation slots, are monitored as close to real time as possible from MPS in Göttingen, Germany. This means that we receive real time telemetry from the spacecraft as soon as it points to Earth after the observation is completed and we can make a first assessment of the success of the operations based on the number of errors that the camera reports. Then we follow the downlink of the images from the spacecraft in real time, mainly in order to confirm before the end of the pass if the images are complete. Once the downlink is complete, we receive an email with the notification and fall back to the first case.
• for essential operations, such as the rotational charaterizations (RCs) and the beginning of each observations phase, two operators from our team travel to the Dawn Science Center at UCLA, while the rest of the team monitors from MPS. These allows the in-situ discussion of mitigation measures at JPL should the need arise. Among the scenarios we are ready to cover are safing of the camera (with the required recovery actions) or wild changes in the observation conditions that would require and actual modification of the command sequences.

So the bottom line is that yes, a couple of people were monitoring the arrival of the images yesterday evening.
I believe that there is a press release scheduled for today, but do not hold me accountable for it if it does not happen. If you have any additional questions, I will be mostly pleased to answer.

Hello pablogm1024.
Thank you for the information.

And yes also I had a look at the DSN page and noted that dish 43 in Canberra were working on Dawn around midnight for us.
So yes lets hope we get to see another hint of our interesting little world today. =)

Thanks for the info, always interesting to get the detail. Waiting now with bated breath!