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New Horizons at Io
volcanopele
post Feb 24 2007, 07:53 PM
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Since the New Horizons Jupiter Encounter thread is already getting pretty long, I decided to create a thread dedicated to New Horizons' observations of the most interesting object in the solar system: Io. Info on upcoming observations comes from the jupiter_timeline_static.xls document john_s posted, and the preview images are from Celestia (note that each image is scaled so that the pixel scale is ~correct, and represents a smaller FOV than LORRI)

Today, February 24, New Horizons conducts three observations of Io with the LORRI camera as well some observations of Io's atmosphere with ALICE. These observations have the lowest phase angle for Io of the entire encounter. Phase angle continues to increase as NH approaches Jupiter and Io.

Attached Image

The first observation, ISunMon1, shows Io's sub-Jovian hemisphere (Clat=5.5 S, Clon=340.2 W) from a distance of 7,856,307 km. The resolution with LORRI would be 38.8 km/pixel. Pele is on the limb at lower right and Masubi is on the limb at lower left. Ra Patera is near center.

Attached Image

The second observation, ISunMon2, also shows Io's sub-Jovian hemisphere (Clat=5.5 S, Clon=15.1 W) from a distance of 7,575,510 km. The resolution with LORRI would be 37.5 km/pixel. The Tvashtar plume might be poking above the limb at upper left.

Attached Image

The third observation, ISunMon3, shows Io's leading hemisphere (Clat=6.0 S, Clon=84.7 W) from a distance of 6,627,459 km. The resolution with LORRI would be 32.8 km/pixel. The Zamama plume might be visible just above center on the left limb.

It only gets better from here. Not sure how NH downlink works, but there is a DSN window right after the last Io observation, hopefully at least one frame from each observation will be returned. Maybe they can do the Huffman window right around where Io is... Tomorrow contains four more observations of Io, highlighting Pele and an eclipse.


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edstrick
post Apr 8 2007, 08:11 AM
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I keep wondering on the engineering "strategy" of building a mini-Hubble as an outer planets spacecraft.

By that, I don't mean s miniaturized hubble telescope, but a spacecaft that would be essentially a 1 meter or 1.5 meter telescope. Imagine a cassegranian (as a visual example, though we'd probably want all reflecting optics) telescope in a 1-axis fork-mount. The BASE of the mount would be the main spacecraft bus and the BIG X/Ka or whatever band antenna to Earth. ALL of the high power remote sensing instruments would be in bays behind the main mirror, like the instruments on Hubble, with the highest resolution camera at the center of the focal plane pickoff point.

The vehicle's normal mode of operation would be Hubble-like... Instruments all pointing in one direction, but not necessarily overlapping fields of view (unless you can use dichroic mirrors to split (for example) visible and near-IR from thermal IR, etc and share the same fileld of view). The whole telescope could slew toward and away from the beam-angle of the antenna (usually toward the Earth) with one degree of freedom, while spacecraft rolls along the antenna-axis would take care of aximuth pointing.

Use of big photon-grabbing light-bucket optics will give spectrometers a far better tradeoff on area resolution and spectral resolution and signal-to-noise ratio than with Voyager/Galileo/Cassini dedicated instruments, while the sheer diffraction limited resolution increase of the big optics will give the spacecraft the ability to leisurely do whole hemisphere high resolution (kilometer to 100 meter) mapping at 10 times the range of Galileo or Cassini, and permit a Cassini like mission to take frame-filling long range monitoring images instead of of the 50 to 100 pixel icy satellite images it can currently take.

Small, secondary instruments, like Wide-Angle cameras or extreme-ultraviolet spectrometers can be mounted "parasitically" on the main telescope, like finder scopes on a Celestron or the like.

My question is to what extent has mission designs like this been considered compared to the sorts of things we're flying now, with or without scan platforms, with or without near continual telemetry to Earth. What are the drawbacks to such a design, what are the advantages?
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- volcanopele   New Horizons at Io   Feb 24 2007, 07:53 PM
- - plasmatorus   The feature that ustrax circled is actually a cosm...   Mar 4 2007, 05:30 PM
|- - ustrax   QUOTE (plasmatorus @ Mar 4 2007, 05:30 PM...   Mar 5 2007, 12:20 PM
- - Stu   HERE BE DRAGONS… Through your telescopes I am Mer...   Mar 7 2007, 10:33 PM
- - volcanopele   Nice poem! But... QUOTE A pox-infected moon ...   Mar 8 2007, 01:00 AM
- - nprev   "nuts and bolts butterflies gliding past me...   Mar 8 2007, 02:10 AM
- - centsworth_II   "Who you callin' pox-infected!?...   Mar 8 2007, 06:15 AM
- - um3k   If anyone is pox-infected, it's Callisto. Io i...   Mar 8 2007, 03:04 PM
|- - tty   QUOTE (um3k @ Mar 8 2007, 04:04 PM) Io is...   Mar 8 2007, 07:20 PM
|- - Stu   QUOTE (um3k @ Mar 8 2007, 03:04 PM) Io is...   Mar 8 2007, 07:36 PM
- - ugordan   Then how about.... Scarface (tm) ?   Mar 8 2007, 07:44 PM
- - NMRguy   Well, the images are starting to trickle in. A fe...   Mar 12 2007, 10:41 PM
- - elakdawalla   Well spotted -- I had just visited the site second...   Mar 12 2007, 11:28 PM
- - volcanopele   Looks like ISunMon1 and ISunMon2 are down. Tvasht...   Mar 12 2007, 11:29 PM
- - volcanopele   Don't see Pele on the limb in the longer exp...   Mar 12 2007, 11:57 PM
- - volcanopele   I've moved the LPSC related talk here: http:/...   Mar 13 2007, 03:30 AM
- - volcanopele   Maybe I was a little hasty about the "flow...   Mar 13 2007, 05:39 AM
- - john_s   A cool new Io image is now posted on the New Horiz...   Mar 13 2007, 05:40 PM
- - ngunn   That is truly spectacular!   Mar 13 2007, 06:09 PM
- - ugordan   Absolutely awesome image! Incandescent lava, p...   Mar 13 2007, 06:21 PM
- - stevesliva   That glowing lava really centers the source of the...   Mar 13 2007, 06:27 PM
- - Stu   Wow... congratulations to you and all the team Joh...   Mar 13 2007, 06:33 PM
- - centsworth_II   Can you imagine how big that "fire fountain...   Mar 13 2007, 06:43 PM
- - john_s   Here's the famous Galileo image of the 1999 fi...   Mar 13 2007, 07:19 PM
- - volcanopele   I don't think that's the fire fountain. I...   Mar 13 2007, 07:20 PM
- - volcanopele   Well, after a little work, I found the vent: Th...   Mar 14 2007, 06:33 AM
- - volcanopele   One should also not the apparent absence of the Pe...   Mar 14 2007, 06:36 AM
- - john_s   Nice work Jason! You're ahead of us! ...   Mar 14 2007, 03:40 PM
|- - ustrax   Don't ask me how I got here...   Mar 14 2007, 04:34 PM
|- - volcanopele   QUOTE (john_s @ Mar 14 2007, 10:40 AM) Ni...   Mar 14 2007, 04:56 PM
- - volcanopele   Nice work, ustrax. Is it just me, or does it look...   Mar 14 2007, 05:00 PM
|- - ustrax   QUOTE (volcanopele @ Mar 14 2007, 05:00 P...   Mar 14 2007, 05:35 PM
|- - volcanopele   QUOTE (volcanopele @ Mar 14 2007, 10:00 A...   Mar 28 2007, 08:25 PM
|- - john_s   QUOTE (volcanopele @ Mar 28 2007, 08:25 P...   Mar 28 2007, 08:33 PM
|- - volcanopele   QUOTE (john_s @ Mar 28 2007, 01:33 PM) I ...   Mar 28 2007, 08:59 PM
- - volcanopele   No, the orientation should be different. It doesn...   Mar 14 2007, 06:00 PM
|- - ustrax   QUOTE (volcanopele @ Mar 14 2007, 06:00 P...   Mar 15 2007, 10:36 AM
- - NMRguy   More images are up. The first three listed look l...   Mar 15 2007, 08:42 AM
- - volcanopele   Two more image sequences are down: ISunMon3 and Ih...   Mar 15 2007, 09:10 PM
- - dilo   I think this can help: Enlarged montage of two im...   Mar 15 2007, 10:01 PM
- - volcanopele   Two new observations have showed up on the SOC pag...   Mar 16 2007, 03:52 AM
- - martin peters   Impressive images. In image lor_0035015234_0x630_s...   Mar 16 2007, 05:19 AM
- - volcanopele   Those are quite likely to be noise hits. LORRI se...   Mar 25 2007, 03:43 AM
|- - ugordan   QUOTE (volcanopele @ Mar 25 2007, 04:43 A...   Mar 25 2007, 09:48 AM
|- - john_s   QUOTE (volcanopele @ Mar 25 2007, 03:43 A...   Mar 26 2007, 02:27 AM
- - Alan Stern   Volcanopele-- A couple of things conspired against...   Mar 25 2007, 12:45 PM
- - volcanopele   Sweet. Good to hear everything is okay (now anywa...   Mar 26 2007, 03:10 AM
- - volcanopele   WOOHOO!! New images are up! EDIT: The...   Mar 26 2007, 03:15 AM
- - Decepticon   Even at 7.9 Million Kilometers detail can be seen....   Mar 26 2007, 05:49 AM
|- - volcanopele   Those images are discussed here: http://www.unmann...   Mar 26 2007, 05:59 AM
- - volcanopele   The first images from MVIC have been released show...   Mar 28 2007, 08:14 PM
|- - ustrax   QUOTE (volcanopele @ Mar 28 2007, 09:14 P...   Mar 29 2007, 09:23 AM
- - um3k   I posted my version of that image here: http://www...   Mar 28 2007, 08:26 PM
- - volcanopele   WOOHOO! More images. Io images even!   Mar 28 2007, 09:08 PM
- - volcanopele   Quick look results: *Plume at Shango Patera Not a...   Mar 28 2007, 09:24 PM
- - volcanopele   The first image set up is Ihires1. These image...   Mar 28 2007, 09:47 PM
- - volcanopele   The next image set up is Ihires2. These images...   Mar 28 2007, 10:38 PM
- - volcanopele   The final image set up is Ihires3. These images...   Mar 28 2007, 11:23 PM
- - volcanopele   Because not everyone is caught up on their Ionian ...   Mar 29 2007, 12:13 AM
- - volcanopele   Marchis et al. 2005 reported that a hotspot was ob...   Mar 29 2007, 03:57 AM
- - nprev   Getting the impression here that buying real estat...   Mar 29 2007, 04:58 AM
- - volcanopele   Actually, on or near mountains would be one of the...   Mar 29 2007, 05:17 AM
- - volcanopele   And I have narrowed down the date of the northern ...   Mar 29 2007, 05:34 AM
- - volcanopele   Okay, with two eruptions seen by Keck tied to surf...   Mar 30 2007, 02:10 AM
- - volcanopele   Stealing an idea from Emily, here is an animated g...   Mar 30 2007, 05:38 AM
- - elakdawalla   Oh, you beat me to it, Jason! --Emily   Mar 30 2007, 02:41 PM
- - volcanopele   http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/gallery/missionPho...ges...   Apr 2 2007, 10:00 PM
- - elakdawalla   Jason, is the USGS map of Io that just showed up o...   Apr 3 2007, 04:53 PM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Apr 3 2007, 09:53 AM...   Apr 3 2007, 05:20 PM
|- - volcanopele   QUOTE (elakdawalla @ Apr 3 2007, 09:53 AM...   Apr 3 2007, 08:19 PM
- - volcanopele   Attached are colorized versions of the three lates...   Apr 4 2007, 12:22 AM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (volcanopele @ Apr 3 2007, 05:22 PM...   Apr 4 2007, 03:15 AM
- - nprev   Wow! Lookin' great, Jason, but for some ...   Apr 4 2007, 12:28 AM
- - volcanopele   In many ways, you're right, one certainly shou...   Apr 4 2007, 08:08 AM
- - ugordan   VP, did you use the Lab colorspace or something el...   Apr 4 2007, 08:25 AM
- - volcanopele   To create these colorized images, I reprojected a ...   Apr 4 2007, 08:58 AM
- - volcanopele   A few posts ago, I talked about my search for surf...   Apr 4 2007, 09:52 AM
- - volcanopele   A new image set was posted on the LORRI raw ima...   Apr 4 2007, 08:02 PM
- - DrShank   be careful of merging Galileo color with LORRI ima...   Apr 5 2007, 05:55 PM
- - volcanopele   Absolutely. To be honest, they are more for aesth...   Apr 5 2007, 06:19 PM
- - volcanopele   Okay, I think I figured out what we are seeing at ...   Apr 5 2007, 07:05 PM
- - volcanopele   Three new image sets were posted online today, ...   Apr 8 2007, 01:15 AM
- - volcanopele   The next image set posted today is Ihiresir1. T...   Apr 8 2007, 02:32 AM
- - volcanopele   The last image set posted today is Ihires4. The...   Apr 8 2007, 03:04 AM
- - nprev   Magnificent, is all. Thanks for posting these, VP....   Apr 8 2007, 06:19 AM
- - volcanopele   Actually, unless we see a radical improvement in r...   Apr 8 2007, 07:52 AM
|- - nprev   QUOTE (volcanopele @ Apr 8 2007, 12:52 AM...   Apr 8 2007, 02:45 PM
- - edstrick   I keep wondering on the engineering "strategy...   Apr 8 2007, 08:11 AM
- - edstrick   I note the currently active thread on an asteroida...   Apr 8 2007, 08:21 AM
- - volcanopele   Here are the three latest sequences colorized. Ag...   Apr 9 2007, 09:08 PM
- - dilo   cool, VP!   Apr 10 2007, 05:27 AM
- - volcanopele   Here is the completed version of that very crude m...   Apr 11 2007, 12:12 AM
- - tfisher   Volcanopele -- awesome. Thanks for sharing with u...   Apr 11 2007, 01:16 AM
- - Phil Stooke   Very nice, VP - I couldn't resist doing a bit ...   Apr 11 2007, 03:24 AM
- - ugordan   That's sweet, Phil. Is there any "scienti...   Apr 11 2007, 09:27 AM
|- - tedstryk   Three wings from bats, five magnolia leaves, five ...   Apr 11 2007, 09:54 AM
|- - JRehling   QUOTE (tedstryk @ Apr 11 2007, 02:54 AM) ...   Apr 11 2007, 05:39 PM
|- - john_s   Hi Folks- We've been slow about posting new i...   Apr 16 2007, 08:18 PM
- - ugordan   *sigh* Science ain't what it used to be...   Apr 11 2007, 12:00 PM
|- - tedstryk   QUOTE (ugordan @ Apr 11 2007, 12:00 PM) *...   Apr 11 2007, 12:46 PM
- - Phil Stooke   My seam removal was pure hocus-pocus, only done fo...   Apr 11 2007, 02:25 PM
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