Some random Cassini stuff, from the PDS Options

[ugordan]

Here are two Saturn wide angle shots made of 2 footprints each. The one on the left is using RGV color, the one on the right is RGB for comparison. I performed no individual channel multiplications/corrections, only some sharpening and a gamma of 1.25 was applied.



Saturn's "blue cranium" only appears distinctly blue using the violet filter, while using the blue filter it turns out a very subdued bluish hue.

[tedstryk]

Great images!

[RNeuhaus]

Secrets Revealed in Saturn’s Faintest Rings




New photos of Saturn’s E ring shows how it has a similar double-banded structure to Jupiter’s ring. Thanks to data gathered by Cassini, scientists now believe that the E ring particles originate from water geysers on Saturn’s moon Enceladus. The double-banded appearance occurs because there are actually less particles at the ring plane than there are above and below it. Scientists believe the double structure is created by the trajectory of particles ejected from Enceladus, or through ongoing interactions between the moon and the ring.

http://www.universetoday.com/2006/07/05/se...faintest-rings/

Rodolfo

[Toma B]

Just been on Cassini raw images page and seen this:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=78646
What are those concentic circles?
I think there is no rain in Saturns orbit...
Is there something wrong with the camera?
There are many more images like that one...here

[djellison]

That's dust and other crud on the optics/ccd etc. They get pulled out ( mostly ) via calibration etc - but the raw JPG's can often really really show them well because they might be looking at a low contrast object and then get very heavily stretched.

Doug

[Bob Shaw]

That's dust and other crud on the optics/ccd etc. They get pulled out ( mostly ) via calibration etc - but the raw JPG's can often really really show them well because they might be looking at a low contrast object and then get very heavily stretched.

Doug

Doug:

Nah. It's Volcanopele's digital thumbprints!

Bob Shaw

[ugordan]

Great images!

Thanks. Here are a couple of Hyperion composites from the recently released data:
A true color, RGB view:

This is probably more or less what Hyperion looks like, the officially released views so far stated the red hue was deliberately toned down in the releases.

A stretched color view, using IR, green and UV channel:

Image on the right is processed similarly to the CICLOPS releases, mapping differences in the predominantly reddish color. Note how Hyperion is much brighter in the infrared, hence the very red coloring. It's even more pronounced if you go further into the IR band.

Lastly, another attempt at a 3D image, a cross-eye view:

It was composed using the 2 above views, the stretched color one was toned down to match the true color view.

[Bob Shaw]

That 3-D view reveals one sick-looking puppy of a moon - rotting away before our very eyes!

Bob Shaw

[nprev]

Thanks, UGordon...great images!!!

Bob's comment has a lot of validity...Hyperion has clearly been used & abused, much more so IMHO than any other object we've yet examined up close. I still think that it's a captured Centaur that made a pass or two through the rings, then encountered Titan & subsequently settled into its current orbit...bet that it was at least twice as massive (and spherical!) before these events.

Hmm. On that latter note, does anyone know if Cassini is looking for signs of outgassing along Hyperion's orbital path and/or during any forthcoming close encounters? If it is in fact an errant KBO, I would expect at least some sublimation of exotic ices above the background noise level if it's been in place less than 2 or 3 billion years. The thing certainly seems to have a wide variety of subsurface strata exposed to solar heating at odd intervals from all those craters...

[elakdawalla]

I just got an automated email from the PDS announcing "Data Release 5" for Cassini, including ISS and VIMS data. I have a feeling that these automated announcements are often delayed by weeks, so I'm curious if anyone (ugordan?) knows if this is truly new as of today or has it been available for a while?

Here's the email:

The Planetary Data System (PDS) is pleased to announce a new delivery of

Cassini data for the following instruments:
ISS
VIMS

To access the above data, please visit the following link:
http://pds.nasa.gov/subscription_service/P...-19-Jul-06.html

To access the latest PDS Data Releases, please visit the following link:
http://pds.nasa.gov/subscription_service/P...se-Summary.html

All available PDS data may be downloaded from:
http://starbrite.jpl.nasa.gov/pds/index.jsp

For further information, see the PDS Home Page:
http://pds.nasa.gov/

Thank you for subscribing to the PDS Notification Service,

[volcanopele]

Sorry, I haven't looked in on this thread in a while. ugordan, very nice Hyperion composites. You should try some of the mosaics. I'm curious to see what people with ptgui (I think it is called that) can do with Hyperion. Because of Hyperion's irregular shape and problematic rotation, I can't mosaic Hyperion using ISIS. A program that just morphs and stretches the images to fit together and doesn't care about the object's shape might be useful for this enterprise. A couple of my Hyperion mosaics were released, but I just did those in Photoshop.

Emily, Data Release 5 is this month's release. ISS delivered all of its July-Sep. 2005 data on June 29 (along with VIMS it would seem). Not sure about RSS.

[ugordan]

Thanks, VP! It would be nice to have a reference for double-checking Hyperion's real color, though. So far CICLOPS hasn't released any such views and Voyager images are shifted and very saturated -- not very useful.

Emily: IIRC, the data was slated for release on July 5, but usually it starts appearing a few days earlier, but with limited availability. I think they mark the data release date when all the data is targeted to be available via online PDS search. You can have scenarios that the DVD volumes are available, but the search engine isn't updated yet.
So yes, the automated mail is "ages" old. These Hyperion images are in fact from the latest release.

Bjorn posted news of the data release and what it contains in this thread.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Bjorn posted news of the data release and what it contains in this thread.

When it comes to Cassini PDS releases, Bjorn is usually far ahead of the listservs in letting us know. So if you want to cut down on the traffic to your email inbox, just look for Bjorn's posts instead

[ugordan]

An approximately true color mosaic of Hyperion using 5 footprints taken simultaneously in IR1 and UV3:



Since true RGB filtered images aren't available, I selected appropriate channel mixes for IR1 and UV3 to produce a result virtually identical to a RGB image. The footprints were scaled to the smallest one (the distance between footprints changed considerably!), they cover the entire disk except a small gap in the lower right limb portion, I used a clear frame there and colorized it to match the neighboring colors.
The stitching was done in Photoshop and should in no way be taken as geometrically accurate, some slight fudging was obviously required.

[Bjorn Jonsson]

When it comes to Cassini PDS releases, Bjorn is usually far ahead of the listservs in letting us know. So if you want to cut down on the traffic to your email inbox, just look for Bjorn's posts instead

And now that I have finally taken a look at every image from the July 1 2006 release I have posted an updated summary of the PDS images at http://www.mmedia.is/bjj/misc/css_stuff/im...s_overview.html

(this 'summary' is getting so long that given the length of Cassini's mission I eventually need to make a summary of this summary)