Mid-latitude lakes, and maybe, specular reflection of the sky Options

[ngunn]

Getting through the LPSC poster sessions now and this one I could not let pass without posting:
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2012/pdf/2766.pdf

Lakes in the mid-latitudes are news enough, but what makes this of peculiar personal interest to me is one of the methods by which they hope to confirm the discovery. I quote from the abstract:

"A final test to confirm lakes is to observe a
specular reflection. The specular reflections can be seen
by producing a cylindrical projection of the brightness of
Titan’s sky as viewed from a point on the surface. We
are looking for specular reflections from illumination of
the lake by the sky and not by illumination from the Sun
(Figure 2). This final test is a work in progress."

Some readers may remember me banging on at length about looking for lakes, and other wet surfaces, in this way. (At one point I posted pictures of our college pond on a cloudy day taken through polarisers.) Unfortunately VIMS lacks polarising filters but clearly that's not going to stop them using more indirect means to obtain the same information. I am very heartened to read of this work in progress and I wish them every success.