Dawn approaches Vesta, Approach phase, 3 May to 16 July 2011 |
Dawn approaches Vesta, Approach phase, 3 May to 16 July 2011 |
May 3 2011, 03:44 PM
Post
#1
|
|
Member Group: Members Posts: 544 Joined: 17-November 05 From: Oklahoma Member No.: 557 |
|
|
|
Jun 2 2011, 04:26 AM
Post
#2
|
|
Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1018 Joined: 29-November 05 From: Seattle, WA, USA Member No.: 590 |
I remember when Pioneer 10 flew past Jupiter, almost 40 years ago. I'd eagerly waited a year and a half for it, but the released pics in the papers were awfully poor--worse than pics from ground-based telescopes. I had to wait almost two months for a Sky and Telescope issue that showed the beautiful photos, blowing away anything ever seen from the ground.
Voyager was a little better because I was at Caltech during the Saturn flybys (thirty years ago) and JPL set up monitors all over campus so we could watch the raw footage. The quality was so poor, though, that I was stunned when I saw the beautiful published prints--again, a month or two later. Twenty years ago, when the first Hubble servicing mission reported great new photos, I used the Internet to find those pics on NASA's site. It was the first time I used the Internet for anything but e-mail, and I was blown away to see such beautiful pics within days of the mission. Still, it was just a handful of carefully selected and processed pics. I think it's been about a decade now that space probes have routinely uploaded essentially all their pictures to the web. Now we feel we're being cheated if we don't get daily updates, even when there's little or nothing worth seeing. I'm not saying that's wrong--just marvelling at the change. I have lots of sympathy for planners on the Dawn team who might be taken by surprise. Of course I'm as eager as anyone to see the new pics--even if they are just slightly-bigger blobs--but I can wait. I've got practice at it. --Greg |
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 27th September 2024 - 02:56 AM |
RULES AND GUIDELINES Please read the Forum Rules and Guidelines before posting. IMAGE COPYRIGHT |
OPINIONS AND MODERATION Opinions expressed on UnmannedSpaceflight.com are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of UnmannedSpaceflight.com or The Planetary Society. The all-volunteer UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderation team is wholly independent of The Planetary Society. The Planetary Society has no influence over decisions made by the UnmannedSpaceflight.com moderators. |
SUPPORT THE FORUM Unmannedspaceflight.com is funded by the Planetary Society. Please consider supporting our work and many other projects by donating to the Society or becoming a member. |