Voyager mosaics and images of Jupiter, A fresh look at some ancient stuff |
Voyager mosaics and images of Jupiter, A fresh look at some ancient stuff |
Aug 20 2010, 05:47 PM
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#31
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IMG to PNG GOD Group: Moderator Posts: 2251 Joined: 19-February 04 From: Near fire and ice Member No.: 38 |
Thanks to modern computers and software the old, 'official' Voyager Jupiter images can be reprocessed into something much better. There is also a lot of Voyager data there that was never processed into color composites and/or mosaics (or at least it has not appeared on the WWW). With proper processing the apparent image quality approaches the quality of the Cassini images but needless to say the wavelength coverage is (vastly) inferior.
I have recently been taking a close look at the high resolution Voyager 1 images, i.e. the images obtained in early March 1979. This is going to result in some new and/or reprocessed mosaics. The first one is now complete and I'm working on another one. The image below is a 12 image mosaic (12 orange + 12 violet + 12 synthetic green images). The images were obtained on March 2, 1979 at a range of 4.3 million km. The first image (C1629045.IMQ) was obtained at 05:09:23 and the last one (C1629131.IMQ) at 05:46:11. The resolution is roughly 43 km/pixel. The raw images were calibrated, reprojected to simple cylindrical projection, mosaicked and then rendered using a typical viewing geometry (there is no such thing as a "correct viewing geometry" because the images were obtained over a 37 minute period with Jupiter rotating). I then fixed the color balance. I still haven't 'standardized' how I process the Voyager color. I wasn't completely satisfied with the color I got using an approach similar to what's described in another thread but I think the color could be improved a bit. The final step was to sharpen the resulting image a bit, mainly to compensate for all of the resampling that the previous processing steps required. This image shows lots of features: The Great Red Spot and one of the three white ovals present during the Voyager flybys, smaller spots, scallopped belt/zone boundaries, gravity waves, a bright equatorial plume and the dusky south polar region. I don't think I'm bragging by saying that this is probably the best Voyager 1 Jupiter mosaic that I know of, mainly because of its size (12 images). I will be posting more Jupiter stuff in this thread in the coming days/weeks, both mosaics and interesting images (and needless to say, others are welcome to post images and mosaics as well). |
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Nov 25 2010, 05:39 AM
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#32
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Member Group: Members Posts: 555 Joined: 27-September 10 Member No.: 5458 |
Thought I would clarify that I never meant to belittle the Galileo probe. It returned really fantastic data that actually benefited Cassini greatly. Had the main antenna extended, the images returned would have been phenomenal. The images that were returned were nothing to be really upset over either because many of them were great, especially those of Io. Galileo is a great reminder of the complexity in these missions and the absolute perfection that has to be maintained to have any success in them.
In my opinion, any human creation that is able to survive extreme G-forces while being lifted off this planet, to travel millions of kilometers to another planet, and then to be remotely operated by humans from millions of kilometers away, all the while being subjected to extremes in temperatures and radiation, is nothing short of mind boggling and a wonder of human achievement. Galileo was far from being a failure. -------------------- |
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Nov 28 2010, 09:15 AM
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#33
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 74 Joined: 9-October 10 From: Victoria, BC Member No.: 5483 |
Galileo is a great reminder of the complexity in these missions and the absolute perfection that has to be maintained to have any success in them. If nothing else, NASA have hopefully learned never to build a probe with an unfolding 'umbrella' antenna again... . Moving parts = bad! QUOTE Galileo was far from being a failure. Well, it's good that it managed to send back something useful (at least, the stuff that wasn't horribly butchered by compression blocks), but I still think it's a crying shame that it couldn't take the images that were originally planned. The gravity data at least went some way to making up for it though IMO. |
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