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Unmanned Spaceflight.com _ Uranus and Neptune _ New Hubble shots of Neptune (and map)

Posted by: S_Walker Jul 13 2011, 04:17 PM

To commemorate the 1st anniversary of the discovery of Neptune (in Neptunian years) Hubble released a series of images recorded on June 25-26 2011 depicting the entire cloud surface of the planet over one rotation. http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2011/19/

I created a simple cylindrical projection skin using these images that can be used in some planetary programs (such as WinJUPOS) using these images. Feel free to use the attached image if you'd like.

Here's a link to the globe rotating:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/home/125492958.html
Enjoy,

Sean Walker

Posted by: dilo Jul 13 2011, 08:18 PM

Nice work, Sean!

Posted by: ElkGroveDan Jul 13 2011, 08:20 PM

I love it Sean! Thanks for sharing.

Posted by: S_Walker Jul 13 2011, 08:53 PM

Thanks!

by the way, all the clouds are in their proper positions; the map has 0-degrees at left. It's a simple matter to change it to put 180 at left, for those who prefer that convention. I wonder if the team shot red data, rather than near-IR. I'd like to make a "true" color skin someday.

Posted by: ugordan Jul 14 2011, 07:46 AM

QUOTE (S_Walker @ Jul 13 2011, 10:53 PM)

I wonder if the team shot red data, rather than near-IR. I'd like to make a "true" color skin someday.

The "green" color is apparently F631N (red) filter so that answers your question - although it's not exactly an ideal color filter as it's narrowband. The question then becomes whether they actually shot something in the green range and based on my experience with previous Hubble obs, I don't think so. For reference, here's http://www.flickr.com/photos/ugordan/4963957027/ with WFC3 which did take green and the other two filters are the same.

Posted by: S_Walker Jul 15 2011, 11:08 AM

Excellent Gordan!