New Horizons late cruise, 500 Millions kms - ~200 million kms |
New Horizons late cruise, 500 Millions kms - ~200 million kms |
Jul 25 2014, 11:55 AM
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#16
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2346 Joined: 7-December 12 Member No.: 6780 |
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Aug 6 2014, 11:29 AM
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#17
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 24 Joined: 11-February 07 From: College Station, TX Member No.: 1709 |
Here is a press release about the radio telescope observations of Pluto & Charon using ALMA:
http://public.nrao.edu/news/pressreleases/alma-pluto Neat two-frame animation of the orbital motion |
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Aug 8 2014, 12:52 PM
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#18
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 20 Joined: 4-August 14 From: St. Louis, Missouri Member No.: 7230 |
Movie of Charon orbiting Pluto from LORRI images covering almost 1 full rotation.
http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/space-...on_2014-07.html http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/news_center/news/20140807.php Looks like a clock running backwards in time... appropriate for a spacecraft visiting never-before-seen ancient frozen worlds. |
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Aug 11 2014, 10:47 AM
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#19
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 77 Joined: 27-June 04 From: Queensland Australia Member No.: 90 |
By my calculation, an observer on New Horizons will "see" Pluto at an apparent magnitude of 9.01 at the moment. It will brighten to below Mag. 9 by the end of the week with 400 million kilometers to go. (Of course you can't see an object at mag. 9 with the naked eye. It has to be Mag. 6 or less in a dark sky)
I just thought you might like that bit of trivia. |
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Aug 15 2014, 03:23 PM
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#20
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Member Group: Members Posts: 149 Joined: 18-June 08 Member No.: 4216 |
Movie of Charon orbiting Pluto from LORRI images covering almost 1 full rotation. Looks like a clock running backwards in time... appropriate for a spacecraft visiting never-before-seen ancient frozen worlds. It's the 80s all over again. Just like watching Voyagers 1/2 approaching any one of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune and their moons (poetic licence sought here; the Jupiter flybys took place in 1979). Not long to wait until instant science time.. |
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Aug 15 2014, 05:25 PM
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#21
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Interplanetary Dumpster Diver Group: Admin Posts: 4404 Joined: 17-February 04 From: Powell, TN Member No.: 33 |
It's the 80s all over again. Just like watching Voyagers 1/2 approaching any one of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus or Neptune and their moons (poetic licence sought here; the Jupiter flybys took place in 1979). Not long to wait until instant science time.. It really does feel like it! I remember this experience as Voyager and Triton grew larger and larger as Neptune approached (I imagine it was the same for the earlier encounters, but I wasn't old enough to follow). This seems, to tell the truth, a lot like approaching the set of moons from one of the gas giant but without the gas giant. Edit: This should have read "as Neptune and Triton grew larger and larger as Voyager approached." Doh... -------------------- |
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Aug 15 2014, 06:28 PM
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#22
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Member Group: Members Posts: 334 Joined: 11-December 12 From: The home of Corby Crater (Corby-England) Member No.: 6783 |
As I said in another thread, it is probably better to have this kind of encounter later in mankinds exploratory journey, so that we can not only take advantage of the better technology available on board, but also the amazing capabilities of the internet and social media, to engage those who are simply 'interested' as opposed to only those who are directly 'involved'.So that one may become the other.
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Sep 1 2014, 09:50 AM
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#23
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Member Group: Members Posts: 655 Joined: 22-January 06 Member No.: 655 |
Reading through the latest 'significant events' page on the Cassini website reveals that Cassini took three ISS optical navigation images of Pluto against background stars last Sunday (24th) to help with ephemeris data in pinning down Pluto's exact position for the New Horizons flyby.
IIRC this was undertaken earlier in the mission, but the data were lost due to a saving event. It's great to see the co-operation that exists between the teams on various missions. Hopefully it helped! |
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Sep 1 2014, 01:14 PM
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#24
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
IIRC this was undertaken earlier in the mission, but the data were lost due to a saving event. There are a couple of sets of Pluto images taken over the years, but I couldn't figure out if Pluto was actually detectable in them and which "dot" among a sea of stars and noise it was. -------------------- |
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Sep 1 2014, 03:08 PM
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#25
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Member Group: Members Posts: 655 Joined: 22-January 06 Member No.: 655 |
The images in question are N00228384, N00228385 and N00228386.
It looks as though Cassini was commanded to 'stare' at Pluto so that background stars move relative to it, rather than vice-versa, as several bright stars move 'S/SW' between the frames. However there's so many cosmic ray hits/hot pixels in there, I can't obviously see the target. (I assume Pluto's position is well-enough known that it occupies the exact centre of the image) No doubt the engineering team can clean up the images with dark frame subtraction, and pull Pluto out of the noise. I'm amazed that Cassini's cameras are of use in this regard, given the 4 billion km range to Pluto! |
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Sep 1 2014, 03:15 PM
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#26
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3648 Joined: 1-October 05 From: Croatia Member No.: 523 |
The images in question are N00228384, N00228385 and N00228386. I can find 56 images with target description as "SKY, PLUTO" dating back all the way to 2007, all of them are red and green filter images. Edit: ahh, you're talking about raw images and the latest observation? -------------------- |
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Sep 1 2014, 04:47 PM
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#27
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IMG to PNG GOD Group: Moderator Posts: 2250 Joined: 19-February 04 From: Near fire and ice Member No.: 38 |
(I assume Pluto's position is well-enough known that it occupies the exact centre of the image) Yes, Pluto's position is well known but there are alsways some pointing errors even though Cassini's pointing is amazingly accurate and stable compared to e.g. Voyager and Galileo. But Pluto should still be close to the image center, very probably within 50 pixels from it. |
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Sep 1 2014, 05:28 PM
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#28
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Member Group: Members Posts: 529 Joined: 19-February 05 Member No.: 173 |
Debuting today! Pluto Picture of the Day (PPOD): Daily pix from/about New Horizons, Pluto, and more! http://www.boulder.swri.edu/ppod/
Bookmark it if you like it. -Alan |
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Sep 1 2014, 07:08 PM
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#29
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Member Group: Members Posts: 655 Joined: 22-January 06 Member No.: 655 |
Yes, sorry Gordan, I've been looking at the latest three images from last week.
To my knowledge, the effort to aid the New Horizons mission has now involved Hubble, Cassini, Subaru, Magellan and the Canada/France Hawaii telescope. A very heartening collaborative effort to achieve the biggest 'bang for the buck' at Pluto and beyond. |
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Sep 1 2014, 07:13 PM
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#30
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Member Group: Members Posts: 529 Joined: 19-February 05 Member No.: 173 |
Yes, sorry Gordan, I've been looking at the latest three images from last week. To my knowledge, the effort to aid the New Horizons mission has now involved Hubble, Cassini, Subaru, Magellan and the Canada/France Hawaii telescope. A very heartening collaborative effort to achieve the biggest 'bang for the buck' at Pluto and beyond. And Keck. But Cassini was used for another purpose: astrometry with parallax from 10 AU. |
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