Cassini image database & updates, And notifications of PDS data releases Options

[Bjorn Jonsson]

I have noticed that the January 1, 2007 Cassini PDS release is already available, see http://pds-imaging.jpl.nasa.gov/data/cassi...assini_orbiter/

I haven't downloaded all of the imaging data and I'm just beginning to digest what I already have but there are some beautiful images of Enceladus' plumes and satellite mutual events, images of the G and D rings and interesting images of Saturn's nightside and fairly good Iapetus images.

Radar and VIMS is also available.

All in all a nice 'Christmas gift' .

[elakdawalla]

I sketched my little diagrams and chanted "SOH CAH TOA" and worked it out and yes it came to 114.6 pixels. That sounds like a good plan. I'll put in >114.

I ran that in to Bjorn's database as of March and got the following numbers of images:
Mimas: 422
Enceladus: 623
Tethys: 749
Dione: 884
Rhea: 1584
Hyperion: 677
Iapetus: 2181
Phoebe: 383

These numbers are a little on the highish side...running it down to 200 pixels across, here's what I get:
Mimas: 327
Enceladus: 603
Tethys: 308
Dione: 600
Rhea: 1150
Hyperion: 496
Iapetus: 1061
Phoebe: 227

(Interesting how much of a hit Iapetus and Tethys take, while Enceladus is virtually unchanged!)

...and remember that that's less than 2/3 of the way through the mission. I'm kind of inclined to go with the higher number so as not to have mind-numbing quantities of images where the moons aren't very big, but if someone makes the case that I'll miss out on too many phase angles or mutual events I'll try it with the lower-res ones included.

I should also add that I'm not real excited about downloading 25 volumes and will be more excited about doing this if I can figure out how to use Bjorn's database to write batch files for wget that will only retrieve the files I want...we'll see!

--Emily