New Horizons late cruise, 500 Millions kms - ~200 million kms |
New Horizons late cruise, 500 Millions kms - ~200 million kms |
May 20 2014, 10:11 PM
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IMG to PNG GOD Group: Moderator Posts: 2251 Joined: 19-February 04 From: Near fire and ice Member No.: 38 |
New Horizon's distance from Pluto drops below 500 million km today. The main thread here has been active since before launch and until today.
Today is an appropriate day for a new thread and there are also less than 14 months until Pluto arrival (time flies!). The coming months will see more spacecraft activity than in recent years with optical navigation images of Pluto/Charon, images of Neptune etc. The next 14 months are going to be interesting to say the least. |
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Sep 1 2014, 03:08 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 655 Joined: 22-January 06 Member No.: 655 |
The images in question are N00228384, N00228385 and N00228386.
It looks as though Cassini was commanded to 'stare' at Pluto so that background stars move relative to it, rather than vice-versa, as several bright stars move 'S/SW' between the frames. However there's so many cosmic ray hits/hot pixels in there, I can't obviously see the target. (I assume Pluto's position is well-enough known that it occupies the exact centre of the image) No doubt the engineering team can clean up the images with dark frame subtraction, and pull Pluto out of the noise. I'm amazed that Cassini's cameras are of use in this regard, given the 4 billion km range to Pluto! |
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Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 25th June 2024 - 04:51 AM |
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