Rev 177 Dec 16th - Dec 29th, Rhea flyby |
Rev 177 Dec 16th - Dec 29th, Rhea flyby |
Dec 17 2012, 08:08 PM
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#1
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Member Group: Members Posts: 655 Joined: 22-January 06 Member No.: 655 |
Latest article is up
The highlight has to be a sub-25,000km flyby of Rhea on 22nd December, with ISS observations yielding 140m/pixel resolution at closest approach. 3 sets of mosaics are planned, focusing on the North pole and the trailing hemisphere. Rhea's north pole has had relatively low-res coverage up until now, so this will be interesting. |
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Dec 18 2012, 02:58 PM
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#2
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Lord Of The Uranian Rings Group: Members Posts: 798 Joined: 18-July 05 From: Plymouth, UK Member No.: 437 |
Rhea's north pole got some half-decent coverage from Voyager 1, didn't it?
Here's something I haven't contributed to UMSF for a while — a RGB composite of Titan: -------------------- |
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Dec 18 2012, 07:51 PM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 655 Joined: 22-January 06 Member No.: 655 |
Rhea's north pole got some half-decent coverage from Voyager 1, didn't it? You're right Ian - I was forgetting that Voyager 1 passed by Rhea at around 60,00km (32 years ago!!!) and achieved some very decent coverage on the north polar regions. Our very own Bjorn Jonsson worked up a lovely mosaic from the data on this very forum 4 years ago, see here Will be interesting to see how the imagery compares, as Cassini's cameras are much better Looking forward to it! |
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Dec 18 2012, 08:47 PM
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#4
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IMG to PNG GOD Group: Moderator Posts: 2250 Joined: 19-February 04 From: Near fire and ice Member No.: 38 |
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Dec 18 2012, 11:03 PM
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#5
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Administrator Group: Admin Posts: 5172 Joined: 4-August 05 From: Pasadena, CA, USA, Earth Member No.: 454 |
Wow, it's astonishing it's been so long since equinox.
-------------------- My website - My Patreon - @elakdawalla on Twitter - Please support unmannedspaceflight.com by donating here.
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Dec 19 2012, 01:13 AM
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#6
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Lord Of The Uranian Rings Group: Members Posts: 798 Joined: 18-July 05 From: Plymouth, UK Member No.: 437 |
This vintage animation from 1980 is a pre-encounter simulation of what Voyager would see as it passed over the moon's north pole:
http://youtu.be/zd9TOvFelFg?t=1m50s -------------------- |
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Dec 24 2012, 08:07 PM
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#7
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Member Group: Members Posts: 910 Joined: 4-September 06 From: Boston Member No.: 1102 |
Fantastic images of Rhea available. Images for three mosaics including north pole and trailing hemisphere. Hope some of of the new members who only follow MSL take a look at what unbelievable images are coming from Cassini.
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Dec 24 2012, 10:14 PM
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#8
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1628 Joined: 5-March 05 From: Boulder, CO Member No.: 184 |
The raw images website looks to have data up to just past closest approach. Hopefully there will be more from the outbound leg that should be best for mapping purposes near the north pole.
EDIT 2300UTC: Some of these are now in up to 90000km outbound range. -------------------- Steve [ my home page and planetary maps page ]
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Dec 25 2012, 08:18 AM
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#9
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Senior Member Group: Admin Posts: 3108 Joined: 21-December 05 From: Canberra, Australia Member No.: 615 |
Christmas afternoon, full stomach, lazing around, the internet and Photoshop...
Ahhh.... relaxing with Cassini images: Dione animation Large version here: 6.35mb |
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Dec 25 2012, 05:32 PM
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#10
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1628 Joined: 5-March 05 From: Boulder, CO Member No.: 184 |
From what I can tell Rhea's north pole is lower left of the center in this image, with the prime meridian extending to its right...
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...6/N00199606.jpg -------------------- Steve [ my home page and planetary maps page ]
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Dec 26 2012, 07:42 PM
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#11
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Lord Of The Uranian Rings Group: Members Posts: 798 Joined: 18-July 05 From: Plymouth, UK Member No.: 437 |
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Dec 30 2012, 08:49 PM
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#12
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Member Group: Members Posts: 699 Joined: 1-April 08 From: Minnesota ! Member No.: 4081 |
Playing with a few more raw images of Titan from Rev 177 taken on Dec 27th. These were part of the TMC (Titan cloud monitoring) campaign. A hazy CL1 CB3 image presents familiar surface features that the Celestia Program helps identify. Photoshop Elements was used to make an RGB color image from raw images taken the same day. (Emily had a nice tutorial for this a couple of years ago, although I could only find the Photoshop CS3 tutorial on the Planetary Society website).
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Jan 1 2013, 10:06 PM
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#13
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1628 Joined: 5-March 05 From: Boulder, CO Member No.: 184 |
Happy New Year,
I was able to fill in some northern areas as can be seen on this map of Rhea: http://laps.noaa.gov/albers/sos/sos.html#RHEA Steve |
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Jan 2 2013, 06:37 PM
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#14
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Member Group: Members Posts: 910 Joined: 4-September 06 From: Boston Member No.: 1102 |
The poor dragons are confined to such a small patch--will any future Cassini imaging banish them completely--or are they safe until a future Saturn mission?
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Jan 2 2013, 08:59 PM
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#15
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Member Group: Members Posts: 655 Joined: 22-January 06 Member No.: 655 |
Thanks Steve for your map update.
Floyd, After a quick scan of the published sources, it appears that the best chance to fill that imaging gap (and thus vanquish those dragons) is a March 9th targeted flyby this year, with closest approach (c/a) at just under 1000km. Cassini's orbital inclination remains high (57 degrees) so the spacecraft will be looking 'down' towards Rhea's north pole which is fairly-well illuminated by the sun. I suspect (but don't know for sure) that gravity measurements may be the priority at c/a, but I'd be amazed if there weren't some pretty spectacular high-res images planned for the outward-bound leg of the encounter. (approach is from the night-side) Subsequent to this, I suspect we won't be seeing Rhea's north pole in greater detail for a half-century or so... Jase |
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