Uranian Satellite Image Processing Options

[volcanopele]

Before the T9 data came down, I got a little bored, and played around with some Voyager data of Ariel. The mosaic (oft produced) I generated is below. Again, this mosaic has been produced by a number of folks on the net, so this isn't really new, but I thought I would get this product out there anyway. I stretched the image such that only a few crater rims would have a DN=255 (other mosaics boost the contrast a bit too much, overexposing the ejecta around Melusine, for example. I also ran this image through a high pass filter, sharpening the image.

Enjoy!

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[elakdawalla]

Very nice, Jason! I like the extra detail that you get by high pass filtering and not over-stretching it.

A general comment/question about the Uranian satellite images...because of the season, all of the illuminated parts of all of the satellites in all of the images were pretty much in the southern hemisphere, right? Yet it's really rare to see the Uranian satellite images oriented so that the south pole is at the bottom of the images. I usually rotate any such views before I post them to make them hemispheres illuminated from the bottom, assuming that that puts north at the top. Is that right?

--Emily

[volcanopele]

You're right, South is approximately to the left.

[Phil Stooke]

Here's another one from shortly before Jason's. This is a composite of all the frames from the sequence, chosen to give the maximum surface coverage (hence a small extension at the top from a lower quality frame, not usually included in previous versions of this mosaic).

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

... and the one before that. This is a 'super-resolution' composite of several frames from a color sequence.

Phil

[Rob Pinnegar]

Why don't you re-post some of your Umbriel shots here, Phil? This would be a good place to put them.

[tedstryk]

Great mosaic work!

I did some work with Ariel images a while back, including this approach sequence, using super-resolution where appropriate data was available.


Here are two of the images in color:



Here is the night side from the same images as Jason's mosaic.




Here is my best effort with Umbriel.

http://pages.preferred.com/%7Etedstryk/umbriel.html

Also, here are similarly processed images of Oberon.

[tedstryk]

Here is a new version I produced of the Ariel closest mosaics.

[volcanopele]

Very nice ted. I like the approach sequence, as it clearly shows the rotation of Ariel.

[tedstryk]

That is neat to see. I really like my last on though, because it shows the night side more clearly. Here is a slightly improved version (I reduced a frame border line).

[tedstryk]

Here is a color view of the night side. Of course, the night side is colorized, since there is no color data available, as are some areas near the terminator.

[ugordan]

Very, very nice, Ted!
The stuff you manage to pull out of the old Voyager imagery more resembles Cassini-quality pics than poor-old-vidicon-tube Voyagers!

[Phil Stooke]

Ted's stuff is great - keep it up! I hope you recover from your recent crash OK.

Not to ignore Rob Pinnegar's request - Hi Rob! - but I've been too busy to deal with it. Teaching again this term. If somebody wants to find those posts and link back to them that would be fine. I'd rather not post a second time. But too busy to search for the old post.

Oops - gotta go!

Phil

[ljk4-1]

Today, January 24, is the twentieth anniversary of Voyager 2's flyby of the planet Uranus, the first probe to that world.

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/science/uranus.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2

Four days later, nearly everyone forgot about this mission and its images of a bland blue ball.

http://www.fas.org/spp/51L.html

[tedstryk]

Today, January 24, is the twentieth anniversary of Voyager 2's flyby of the planet Uranus, the first probe to that world.

http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/science/uranus.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_2

Four days later, nearly everyone forgot about this mission and its images of a bland blue ball.

http://www.fas.org/spp/51L.html

Funny to think of...That was my 7th birthday. Of course, in those days, I don't think I had even heard of Voyager 2.

[ljk4-1]

Funny to think of...That was my 7th birthday.    Of course, in those days, I don't think I had even heard of Voyager 2.

You were SEVEN in 1986?

Okay, I'm officially old. Is there a face icon with a long beard and a cane?

You kids - in my day probes only flew by planets and took crude black and white images that had to be sent back at 8 bits per second. And it had to be done in a snowstorm uphill both ways!

[ilbasso]

I was digging through some boxes of memorabilia yesterday, and I came across my issue of Sky & Telescope magazine with Voyager 2's flyby of Saturn. Wow, that seems like ages ago! (and I had already been subscribing for 13 years by then)

[volcanopele]

Funny to think of...That was my 7th birthday.    Of course, in those days, I don't think I had even heard of Voyager 2.

Good grief, I was two...

[ugordan]

Good grief, I was two...

5 years here!
Of course, back then, I didn't know squat about space, but still knew more than others around me.
I remember back in '89 thinking a lunar eclipse was due to Venus passing in front of the moon

[Bob Shaw]

You were SEVEN in 1986?

Okay, I'm officially old.  Is there a face icon with a long beard and a cane?

You kids - in my day probes only flew by planets and took crude black and white images that had to be sent back at 8 bits per second.  And it had to be done in a snowstorm uphill both ways!

Luxury. In my day, it were semaphore. At night, in a 'owling storm, it were. With only one flag, and that made out of me sister's frock. And she was small, due to the malnutrition, so it was a very small frock. Ragged, it was. Full of 'oles. Well, to tell t'truth, it was mostly 'oles. And they were too small to see.

You 'ad it bloody EASY!

Young people today, don't know owt.

Bob Shaw

(who actually *remembers* Mechta!)

[djellison]

You were SEVEN in 1986?

So was I

Doug

[tedstryk]

It was 1989 that I really took up an interest, with Phobos-2 at Mars and then Voyager at Neptune. My students asked me today (I don't know how they found out it was my birthday) if it was hard revising papers back when I had to use a chisel.

[tty]

Luxury.  In my day, it were semaphore. At night, in a 'owling storm, it were. With only one flag, and that made out of me sister's frock. And she was small, due to the malnutrition, so it was a very small frock. Ragged, it was. Full of 'oles. Well, to tell t'truth, it was mostly 'oles. And they were too small to see.

You 'ad it bloody EASY!

Young people today, don't know owt.

Bob Shaw

(who actually *remembers* Mechta!)

I remember Sputnik 1

tty

[Rob Pinnegar]

Luxury.  In my day, it were semaphore.

We had to use carrier pigeons!

[dvandorn]

Good grief, I was two...

I was drawing breath before there were *any* artificial satellites!

Don't no one talk to me about feeling old (he said grumpily)...



-the other Doug

[nprev]

That Sky & Tel cover does bring back memories...

I was 18 (legal age in MT in 1980), and I spent Nov 11th--or was it the 12th?-- of that year drinking beer with my high school physics teacher--ubernerd, yeah, I know-- at the Village Inn Pizza Parlor in Butte, MT & watching the Voyager 1 Saturn pics come in on their new-fangled big projection TV!!! (The local PBS affiliate carried the NASA feed).

Second ljk4-1...we need an old guy smiley!!!

[Jeff7]

1986, I was 4. I don't know when exactly my interest in planets began, but by 4th grade, I knew more about the planets than the teacher did. I could recite the orbital times of all the planets, and the diameters of some. Most of that information came courtesy of Isaac Asimov's Library of the Universe books, which were thin but informative books made shorlty after Voyager 2's flyby of Neptune. One per planet and one for the Sun.
Still remember seeing The Grand Tour video, and cringing that it would be awhile until the 1997 launch of Cassini...and then the 7 year trip too. Just seemed like forever.

[dvandorn]

I was born October 17, 1955. I was just short of two years old when Sputnik 1 was launched. I was five and a half when Gagarin orbited the Earth (and I actually remember the event). I was 8 years old when Mariner 4 flew by Mars, and I was three months short of 14 when Apollo 11 landed on the Moon and when Mariners 6 and 7 flew past Mars.

I was 23 when the Pioneers flew past Jupiter, and I was 34 when Voyager 2 and PBS gifted me with "Neptune All Night."

I'll be three months shy of 60 years old when New Horizons encounters the Pluto system.

Then again, I was 48 when MER-A and MER-B landed on Mars. I'm 50 now, and the MERs are still going strong. Sort of puts it in perspective.

-the other Doug

[tasp]

I was digging through some boxes of memorabilia yesterday, and I came across my issue of Sky & Telescope magazine with Voyager 2's flyby of Saturn.  Wow, that seems like ages ago!  (and I had already been subscribing for 13 years by then)

That was my first issue of my first subscription to Sky and Tel.

Have 'em all ever since.

Thanks for the nostalgia.

[Patteroast]

I know this is getting off-topic, but I had to reply...

I was about -1 then. I was born in February 1987.

So there.

[ljk4-1]

We had to use carrier pigeons!

Ha - I remember when the Chinese were using some kind of new fangled war invention called "fire arrows"!

[ljk4-1]

I was digging through some boxes of memorabilia yesterday, and I came across my issue of Sky & Telescope magazine with Voyager 2's flyby of Saturn.  Wow, that seems like ages ago!  (and I had already been subscribing for 13 years by then)

A nice big version of the artwork on that S&T cover can be found here:

http://www.donaldedavis.com/PARTS/allyours.html

[Ames]

Well it must be good news that so many of the active participants here are so young.

It's strange but when I see tecnical discussions I visualise old beardy blokes[guys].

Good for you kids!

Nick

(Child of the Apollo age)

[volcanopele]

1986, I was 4. I don't know when exactly my interest in planets began, but by 4th grade, I knew more about the planets than the teacher did. I could recite the orbital times of all the planets, and the diameters of some. Most of that information came courtesy of Isaac Asimov's Library of the Universe books, which were thin but informative books made shorlty after Voyager 2's flyby of Neptune. One per planet and one for the Sun.
Still remember seeing The Grand Tour video, and cringing that it would be awhile until the 1997 launch of Cassini...and then the 7 year trip too. Just seemed like forever.

By the 4th Grade I knew the names of all the moons of Jupiter (only 16 back then). Now, with 63, I've given up trying.

My interest in present day planetary science (i.e. not just what I could find in books at the school library) started with Galileo orbit insertion.

[Jyril]

Galileo orbit insertion? But that was just a few years ago... It could NO WAY be 10 years!

[tedstryk]

Interesting you say that, volcanopele...It was in fourth grade when I began taking interest. I remember I would always get astronomy books for Christmas, but unfortunately it was lost on my family and friends that there is a difference between an interest in the planets and deep sky objects and star charts (the latter two are interesting granted, but were never of great interest to me).

[David]

By the 4th Grade I knew the names of all the moons of Jupiter (only 16 back then).  Now, with 63,

But only 48 of them have names yet -- and by the time the rest are named, there will probably be another twenty added...

My goal in that regard is "passive recognition" -- that when I see the name, I can say "oh, that's a Jovian moon" but the only ones I feel I ought to know are the ones discovered before the mid-70s -- back when I was young and the solar system was simple .

My approach for the moons of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune is similar. For asteroids, I don't even bother, but then who does?

[ljk4-1]

My approach for the moons of Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune is similar. For asteroids, I don't even bother, but then who does?

There are people who remember pi out to thousands of digits, so what's a few moons and assorted space rocks?

http://www.joyofpi.com/

[David]

There are people who remember pi out to thousands of digits, so what's a few moons and assorted space rocks?

http://www.joyofpi.com/

The record-holder claims to have memorized 40K digits of pi. Of course, as his technique suggests, he only has ten values to work with, and the trick is memorizing their permutations; whereas memorizing the names of all the asteroids involves a new and arbitrary value for each one. Still, I suppose it could be done for just the named asteroids (last I looked there were fewer than 12K of them). But the unnamed asteroids run to over 100K, which I think is beyond the reach of even the most heroic feats of memory.

[JRehling]

I remember my interest began when a Popeye cartoon showed him in space, and I asked my Mom which planet had rings (and she correctly answered Saturn). Reflecting an interest that was already in place, I received an astronomy book for Christmas when I was 5; I remember a year earlier when I was *3* just short of 4 looking up at the Moon while Apollo 17 was on the surface.

When I was in fourth grade, I was subscribed to Science magazine just for the space articles. At some point, I figured I must know more about astronomy than anyone my age, and if I just "maintained my lead", I would someday know more than anyone in the world. But I gave that up; volcanopele has taken that charge seriously.

This month, I finally used my vintage-1979 telescope to take passable space pictures...

Galileo orbital insertion also re-awakened my interest, but the main credit is due to Internet coverage of Galileo. In the 1970s, I would clip newspaper stories, and buy a new book every three years to download "the latest" information. Internet coverage of Galileo was like drinking from a firehose.

[Phil Stooke]

Yes, the internet is amazing. These days I can hardly find the time to do any real work at all.

Apollo 8 got me very seriously interested - but building on a kid-style interest from about 1965 on. Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be young was very Heaven! (to quote the old sheep of the Lake District). But I also started by building scrapbooks of news cuttings etc., until now I can barely move for the piles of junk which surround me. I have to take students to another room when I need to talk to them.

Phil

[tedstryk]

Here is a new version of some of the best Ariel images.

[tedstryk]

Here is a super-res of Titania. It is a very distant shot, but it is the best of the OGV images for this moon. The O, G, and V frames, in their original size but contrast stretched and a bit cleaned up, are below.

[tedstryk]

Here is a full Titania shot.

[dvandorn]

Reminds me a lot of Callisto, at least at comparable resolution.

-the other Doug

[Decepticon]

Looking at these picture just strengthens the need for more science from a orbiter.

[tedstryk]

Here is the Titania sequence. The color is based on the OGV set. The problem with the full phase sets is that although Titania is rotating, the images are boresighted on the south pole, so it is simply going around like a pinwheel.



Also, here is a full view from a stacking of all five "pinwheel sets" with OGV color.

[tedstryk]

Here is a slightly better full image.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

There's an interesting new paper in the January 2006 issue of Solar System Research:

Mutual occultations and eclipses of the major Uranian satellites in 2006–2010
N. V. Emels’yanov
Solar System Research 40, 79-83 (2006).
DOI: 10.1134/S0038094606010047
Abstract

[scalbers]

Also, here is a full view from a stacking of all five "pinwheel sets" with OGV color.

This nice image from Ted, in concert with the others previously used, has allowed me to increase the areal coverage and the use of color in my Titania map. The latest version is at this URL:

http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#TITANIA

[JRehling]

There's an interesting new paper in the January 2006 issue of Solar System Research:

Mutual occultations and eclipses of the major Uranian satellites in 2006–2010
N. V. Emels’yanov
Solar System Research 40, 79-83 (2006).
DOI: 10.1134/S0038094606010047
Abstract

Yes, some eclipses actually started in 2005, opening a season which hadn't last visited us since the 1960s... I proposed (on a very low level, over a breakfast table) a project to photograph the first eclipse, which was visible from only a sliver of the Earth's surface that included an observatory I had access to, but nothing came of this, and it was probably cloudy anyway...

[scalbers]

Here is a new version of some of the best Ariel images.

Nice images Ted. I went ahead and updated my cylindrical Ariel map with the two largest of these. I believe I also figured out the location of the night side image you sent me a while back so that is included as well.

The URL is http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#ARIEL

[tedstryk]

Nice images Ted. I went ahead and updated my cylindrical Ariel map with the two largest of these. I believe I also figured out the location of the night side image you sent me a while back so that is included as well.

The URL is http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#ARIEL

Looks good. I may tinker to try to make the extension of the canyon system into the north more obvious. Also, I will dig for more distant observations to fill in that nasty gore in the southern hemisphere.

[tedstryk]

Here are the next series out. Maybe this will fill the hole.

[Phil Stooke]

Steve, I think the image in post 5 of this thread might be a little clearer than the one you used. And these two (almost the same as each other) fill in the gap.

I'm especially pleased to see the nightside detail added to your map - certainly a first in the history of planetary cartography (for Ariel, I mean).

Phil








It's very hard to get a good image out of the dark side views. Ted has done a great job. I tackled it as well, with this as one version of my efforts:



It could extend that dark side coverage, including the apparent extension of the canyon area.

If only the Voyager imaging team had recognized this possibility at the time and planned for it! We could have had good images of another 20% or more of several of these moons.

Phil

[Phil Stooke]

And here as Rob suggested a while ago is my Umbriel cylindrical mosaic.

Phil

[scalbers]

Wow - images aplenty. Challenging to decide exactly what to try. I did add a link to Phil's Umbriel map from my website, hope that's OK. For the Ariel gap filling I tried the largest one in Ted's series from post #54. This filled some of the equatorial gap, now if I could just find one to fill the rest

http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#ARIEL

[tedstryk]

Wow - images aplenty. Challenging to decide exactly what to try. I did add a link to Phil's Umbriel map from my website, hope that's OK. For the Ariel gap filling I tried the largest one in Ted's series from post #54. This filled some of the equatorial gap, now if I could just find one to fill the rest

http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#ARIEL

The remaining gap is covered in the more distant shots in my sequence. There are no skipped sets, so this is pretty much what we have to work with.

[scalbers]

Thanks for including all the images Ted. I now see after taking a closer look that the third image from the right (post 54) fills in the rest of the gap. So I think we now have the entire equatorial region covered.

http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#ARIEL

[David]

Is there a similar set of images for Miranda?

[tedstryk]

Is there a similar set of images for Miranda?