Few posts here was about atmosphere of Pluto and possible effects of such atmosphere in the LORRI's pictures.
Pluto has in many ways very similar tenuous atmosphere as Triton. When Voyager 2 approached Triton, atmosphere was tentatively visible from distance 500,000 km.
New Horizons has better cameras but if Pluto's atmosphere is similar to that of Triton, we can expect first clear detection around distance 1-2 millions km.
And this is true only for lossless images.

Even Cassini will be observing Pluto on the 14th. Cool.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/cassinifea...eature20150709/

Regarding the atmosphere, I swear I read somewhere in connection to the recent lost approach science that they did not expect to detect the atmosphere until 12 July, but not sure with which instrument.

Come now, Phil. I'm pretty sure everyone here can remember late June!

New images out.

http://www.nasa.gov/feature/pluto-and-char...ons-dynamic-duo

SpaghettiOs!

Okay, now it's starting to look more like Triton, with the detached fringe on the northern polar cap. And there are now round things starting to be visible that might be impact craters.

Yes, even the caption mentions the team seeing what look to be craters on Charon. I'm getting goosebumps already....

Most of the bright features around Pluto’s edge are a result of image processing, but the bright sliver below the dark “whale,” which is also visible in unprocessed images, is real.

If I didn't know it to be impossible I would say it looks like backlighting, perhaps even through a tenuous atmosphere...

Some seem a bit irregular to be impact craters.

This is just my opinion, but I would say Pluto will have winds and geysers like Triton. It will have a few craters. Charon will have more craters and won't show signs of geological activity.

Changing the light curves:



Looks like there could be a chain of sorts of dark spots running from top-left towards the centre (might just disappear with higher resolution).


Intriguing rings. Intuitively, they don't strike me as impact craters. But maybe that's just what they are.

Triton:



This post has been edited by Habukaz: Jul 9 2015, 10:17 PM

Perhaps like the mushroom areas on Triton (oops I got scooped on that).

^ Another alternative is of course that it is something different altogether, something new. Like a more powerful and bigger type of solar-driven geyser, or something even more exotic. Here's hoping.

It seems like there is a belt of bright loops running most of the way around Pluto which is inclined about 15° to the equator. On the "Whale" hemisphere, the loops in the belt are north of the Whale, and have previously been hidden by the brighter mid-latitude terrain. On the anti-Whale hemisphere, the loops are within the dark terrain which is otherwise about as dark as and parallel to the Whale.

Yes I agree that's looking more like cantaloupe terrain to me marking the edge of the north polar cap. Is the white colour over the donut real? The brightest spot (heart) on the right limb of the disc still looks puzzling as it extends northwards towards the cap and looks eerily smooth from this vantage point as in previous images but showing a bit o topography perhaps now but could be an optical illusion.