Rev 22 Rhea observations Options

[ugordan]

Are there any plans for imaging Rhea on March 21? I noticed all other moons are on the wrong side of Saturn during periapsis passage except Rhea for which there's a pretty close pass, under 100 000 km, although closest approach happens at a very high phase angle.

Rhea approach geometry and closest approach from the Solar System Simulator.

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Are there any plans for imaging Rhea on March 21?

Yes, both ISS and CIRS have imaging sequences for rev 22 non-targeted encounters of Mimas and Rhea on March 21.

[Phil Stooke]

... and other moons! Here are Janus and Epimetheus passing each other. I used one frame as a base, enlarged 200%. Two other frames were then merged with each satellite image to reduce JPEG artifacts, plus a bit of other processing to improve feature visibility.

Phil

[ugordan]

Off-topic, but there are a bunch of images of a bright star taken during an occultation by Saturn. I looked at star charts a bit and it looks like it's Procyon.
Is this part of a UVIS stellar occultation with ISS riding along?
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=68919

Check out this long exposure image of starlight being refracted by Saturn's atmosphere as the occultation proceeds, pretty cool!
I remember there was once a similar APOD showing the 3 stars in Orion's belt to be similarly smeared as the ISS (International Space Station, not Imaging Science Subsystem ) was moving and the stars were dipping lower into the Earth's atmosphere.

NAC RGB composite of the star:

[pat]

Off-topic, but there are a bunch of images of a bright star taken during an occultation by Saturn. I looked at star charts a bit and it looks like it's Procyon.
Is this part of a UVIS stellar occultation with ISS riding along?
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=68919

Check out this long exposure image of starlight being refracted by Saturn's atmosphere as the occultation proceeds, pretty cool!
I remember there was once a similar APOD showing the 3 stars in Orion's belt to be similarly smeared as the ISS (International Space Station, not Imaging Science Subsystem ) was moving and the stars were dipping lower into the Earth's atmosphere.

NAC RGB composite of the star:

The name of the oibservation has "ALPCMIOCC" in it which I'd interpret to mean Alpha Canis Minor Occultation- so looks like Procyon it is then.

[ugordan]

Whoa! Titan, Janus and the rings: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=69327

Many Rhea RAWs are also down, the crescent phase looks pretty similar to that enormous Dione crescent mosaic taken during its closest flyby.

Mimas in front of Saturn: http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/ima...eiImageID=69153

[alan]

Rhea images are up
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=69227

[Bjorn Jonsson]

There are also some interesting images of a Mimas transit across Saturn from a distance of 190,000 km. This one is visually beautiful: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=69153

[Phil Stooke]

Here are two of the Mimas images with a bit of a stretch to show near-terminator features better.

Phil

[ugordan]

There's a color, wide angle movie of Rhea transiting Saturn's disc. With plenty of patience and Photoshopping, that could be composed into a color movie.

A single frame, color is mainly guesswork based on previously released work:



Mimas in front of Saturn's disc . I used IR1/GRN/UV3, unfortunately the IR and green images were truncated so they didn't capture the whole disc of Mimas. I used synthetic color, using UV3 data to fill the missing portions.


Photoshop was used a good deal and this is more of an art image (especially the botom) than the real thing. Still, it turned out fairly nicely.

[TritonAntares]

There's a color, wide angle movie of Rhea transiting Saturn's disc.
With plenty of patience and Photoshopping, that could be composed into a color movie.

A single frame, color is mainly guesswork based on previously released work:

Fantastic view....

This image really shows the proportions between the tiny moons - here Rhea - and the giant Saturn with his rings.
Even the thinner part of Saturns' upper gasous surface is visible at his horizon:


Composing a color, wide angle movie of Rhea transiting Saturn's disc would be superb.
Can't wait enjoying it.

Bye.

[edstrick]

Stepping through the Rhea narrow-angle images, there's a surprising *LOT* of rotation visible betwen frames forming several frame mini-movies at each pointing.

[ugordan]

Stepping through the Rhea narrow-angle images, there's a surprising *LOT* of rotation visible betwen frames forming several frame mini-movies at each pointing.

That's actually a *BAD* thing from a color compositing point of view. I was expecting this to be a leisurely encounter, with very little perspective change in successive frames. Was I wrong...
Creating a color composite will require map projections and reprojections, the problem is probably even worse for different mosaic footprints.
Once again the ISS image acquiring speed underwhelms me

[edstrick]

AMEN. I don't understand why so much geometry change between frames.. this is not a super close encounter. (sigh)

[djellison]

Ciclops is quite old remember, it probably had to have its design frozen about 12 years ago.

Anyhoo - QT7 required :0
Doug

Attached File(s)

 janus_titan_rings.mov ( 276.84K ) Number of downloads: 480
 rhea_saturn_stack.mov ( 92.13K ) Number of downloads: 457