Exquisite Saturn Images Options

[ugordan]

I think it might be Tethys as well, it's brighter than other stuff visible (though that's a risky statement with raw jpeg footprints). That's probably Dione to the right, with a hint of dark terrain. Nice catch on the big storm previously detected by its radio emissions. The Dragon Storm 2?

My attempt at some color:


EDIT: Yep, those are Tethys and Dione with Enceladus at the far side. Additionally, Epimetheus and Pandora are detectable as small specks about halfway between Enceladus and Dione. Prometheus was around as well, but it's lost in front of Saturn's disc.

[dilo]

Fantastic picture, gordan!

[ugordan]

Thanks, Marco. I'm particularly interested in low phase views such as this one as they seem to bring out much more variation in Saturn's atmospheric bands than what your typical medium-phase Cassini view shows. I don't know how much the color here can actually be trusted, but its striking that the northern hemisphere displays such discrete colors.
I guess sunlight coming straight down (well, as straght down as is possible at those latitudes at the moment) and reflecting straight up to the observer really helps reduce atmospheric scattering and absorption of certain wavelengths. It's at these phase angles that Saturn starts to look the way we see it from Earth. That's why it's a particular shame another big low phase mosaic (from below the ring plane) from February 2007 was overexposed.

[Ian R]

Here's a 'work-in-progress' version of the latest mosaic:

Edit: I've adjusted the colours to something approaching the right balance; now all I need to do is register the moons and clouds...

Edit: Clouds are registered, now for the moons...

[Ian R]

The finished product:

[tedstryk]

The finished product:

Incredible!

[nprev]

...closest thing any of us now living will ever come to seeing the real thing from this vista.

Thank you for the gift, Gordan.

[ugordan]

Just for fun I made a flicker GIF between the two recent mosaics, click here to get it (1.4 megabytes). I may add in additional mosaics later, should any appear.

[ugordan]

Another quick one:

[scalbers]

Nice view and interesting that more of the small-scale circulation features are visible in the bluer regions, probably in relation to having less (yellowish) high-altitude haze/clouds.

[ngunn]

As I post this is currently the very top image on the Cassini raws page:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...iImageID=138107

I'm amazed it's possible to follow the curves of the rings so well into their shadowed part. Not only that - looking carefully at the shadowed rings I can see the innermost edge lit by sunlight, presumably reflected from the sunlit rings onto the nightside of Saturn and then back onto the rings. That makes sense so far, but apart from that extreme inner edge the shadowed rings actually seem to be in sihouette, i.e. darker than the sky behind them, particularly the sky on the inside, near Saturn's nightside limb. Is this real? It's like one of your puzzles Ugordan.

Edit - No I see now it's not (having put it up on my big bright projector screen), but rather an effect of the digital contouring of light straying from the brighter parts of the scene. It almost looks like one of those space paintings that almost never show the sky as black. Nice view though, and no doubt part of something bigger that I hope to see here soon.

[ugordan]

Here's a couple of fun ones from the Jan 1, 2008 PDS batch. First, an unusual view:

When you see Saturn's nightside south of the equator overexposed, you know it's a long exposure. The ghostly bluish glow around the north pole is light bleeding from the sunlit, bluish northern latitudes.

A 2 frame mosaic of Saturn's southern latitudes, sharpened to bring out cloud features (1.6 MB):


And another short, 6 frame animation capturing Cassini's motion toward the ring plane and Saturn's rotation (watch the streaky clouds) (3.5 MB):

These frames also include another south footprint for a mosaic, but it's a bit awkward to mosaic the frames due to the long slew times Cassini needs causing noticeable perspective change and the fact there's no sharply defined features to hook onto.

[Ian R]

Awesome views Gordan! (Happy New Year, by the way).

Have you ever considered publishing your work in a book, via Lulu, perhaps? I would certainly buy a copy...

Ian.

[nprev]

Damn, man...just damn. Gordan, your products make Saturn seem more like a real place then any other imagery I've seen from Cassini.

[ugordan]

Thanks, guys. Ian, you mean like a coffee-table-book-thingy? I never thought about that. I don't think I'd ever manage to pull off something like that since I'm almost never satisfied with the way these composites turn out and am often compelled to go back and work on them some more. You know, not actually "freezing" the product. Looking at it on paper later on I'd always manage to find things to improve on and that'd just bug me.

Nick, for me the greatest "presence factor" comes from images that have something humans can easily relate to. Simple lens flare, for example - it gives even otherwise unremarkable images that "real" feeling instead of being almost synthetic, unreal. I'm personally fond of some very high phase Cassini views that show this a lot: