Rev 139 - Oct 4-28, 2010, Titan, Mimas, Pallene, Dione and Rhea Options

[ngunn]

Images are flowing from Cassini again following conjunction. Here's the ususal handy guide for the next few weeks:
http://www.ciclops.org/view/6570/Rev139

[jasedm]

Titan, Mimas, Pallene, Dione and Rhea imaging plus atmospheric occultations etc etc - fabulous use of the resources available. I'm in awe.

[ugordan]

Rev 139 images have started coming in. Hi-res Dione and Rhea stuff. Mimas global views.

Also, Pallene! The good news is it's in the frame and looks good, the bad news is the raw contrast stretch destroyed any detail. I'm pretty shocked at how spherical the thing looks.

[volcanopele]

Keep in mind that you are basically looking down the barrel of Pallene if you will. The long axis of the satellite is pointed at Saturn, so it could be more elongated that what you see, but you are looking down the long axis.

So it may not be that circular.

[ugordan]

Yeah, I was just thinking how we already had a somewhat good view (in color, too) of a rock that turned out to be ellipsoidal. Was it also Pallene or Methone, I forget? If it was Pallene, it's not surprising we'd be looking down the "barrel" - given the tidal force and particular image geometry.

[jasedm]

I too am a tad disappointed by the Pallene coverage. Gordan you posted a version of Pallene based on the PDS data some time back, from images taken at (guesstimated) 67,000km, showing the moon as markedly ellipsoidal.
It seems certain that today's views have imaged the long axis as Jason states.
I was hoping for a ridge, or perhaps a large crater or two - never mind, we can't have it all.
Looking through the encounter distances for the remainder of the mission throws up a flyby at around 26,000km in September next year. This would yield images in the order of 36 pixels across. Hopefully some 'pointing time' can be allocated by mission planners in order to gain another image set of the moon at this time. Very high phase angle at c/a though....

[ugordan]

I too am a tad disappointed by the Pallene coverage.

Hey, I'm not disappointed. Who knows what detail lies there in the original raw frames

[Juramike]

HiPassLRGB(GRN polarization 0,60,120) image of Mimas. Since the normal color images were chopped, I loaded the GRN polarization data into the RGB channels and fiddled with it to look "good". (Amping up the saturation)



Further details on flickr.

[antipode]

Hmmmm, what do people make of the curving ridge running from the rim of Herschel to the limb? I dont remember seeing that before...

P

[Astro0]

Pretty spectacular display in the rings!


Original image and description here.

[ilbasso]

Hmmmm, what do people make of the curving ridge running from the rim of Herschel to the limb? I dont remember seeing that before...

P

Looks to me like the rim of an old crater that Herschel is superimposed upon. If you follow it from upper left, imagine it continuing under Herschel, and then turning back to the left, the ridge immediately at 9:00 from Herschel appears to be part of the same feature. That could be an optical illusion, coincidence, or wishful thinking. The ridge at 9:00 could just as easily be associated with the ridge line at 7:00.

[ElkGroveDan]

Pretty spectacular display in the rings!

A sequence of that perspective would have made an awesome animation but that's the best of only three.

[Hungry4info]

Wow!

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[ugordan]

It looks like a whole 'nuther moon! That stuff is visible not only in the red, but also the green filter!

[remcook]

Holy cow!