Saturn's Rings To Shine As Never Before Options

[dilo]

This forum digests new data so fast that by the time the press release shows up its already moved on to the next adventure.

Absolutely! Anyway, thanks to improved quality of official released images, I made a new version of the shadow pictures, now clearly showing also Enceladus shadow projected throug itself material!

Attached thumbnail(s)

 

[Ian R]

Sorry, but I can't resist:



My apologies to SigurRosFan

Ian.

[SigurRosFan]

Thanks Ian!

[djellison]

Is this a new (albeit very faint) ring between the F and G rings?

I think you might be on to something

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2006-110

Doug

[Rob Pinnegar]

As Phil has pointed out, the H ring must have a very low optical depth. If you take a close look at Ian's above diagram (the one that shows the "panoramic view" with a longer-exposed inset) you can see that the H Ring is barely visible outside of the inset. The other rings are all clearly visible, though -- including parts of the D Ring that contain hardly any material at all.

Now comes the really fun part: figuring out what kind of orbit a particle in the H Ring follows. One possibility would be horseshoe orbits -- but, if that were true, the angular amplitude of the horsehoe of an H-Ring particle would have to be time-dependent, to accomodate the motions of Janus and Epimetheus within their mutual horseshoe! Since Janus and Epimetheus can approach each other to within about 5.5 degrees, I'm guessing any such "nested horseshoe" orbit for an H-Ring particle would be unstsable. Anyways, a fun project for someone in orbital dynamics.

[ljk4-1]

Image of the Day: Pale Blue Orb

Earth is captured in a natural color portrait made possible by the passing of
Saturn directly in front of the sun from Cassini's point of view.

http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/image_of_day_060920.html

[ljk4-1]

An image of Earth next to the rings and our Pale Blue Dot up close in inset:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/...mp;auid=1993417

[paxdan]

CICLOPS post regarding recent Saturn Eclipse observations. The pics released look stunning, I can't wait to see the final HDR composit of the images taken, if the rest of 'Saturn in Eclipse' looks as wonderful as the bit visible in the pale blue orb image it will be spectacular.

Anyone have any further composits they want to share? Or will we have to wait for the PDS release in order to see an improvement on what has already been posted?

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

There are lots more images on the RAW pages now, incluiding this amazing view of Enceladus:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=83494

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=83579

[alan]

Interesting sequence of G-ring images from the 19th. You can see the the material piling up on the inside of the ring. Which moon is going past as this is going on?
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...storedQ=1321202

[Ian R]

Is this yet another new ring, or merely just a clump in the E ring?

[alan]

According to this Planetary Society webpage the E-ring extends nearly to the G-ring, so technically it is in the E-ring as are the moons Methone and Pallene. Judging from the distance between it and the G and E rings I'd say it is near Pallene's distance. Since Janus and Epimetheus have a ring it makes sense that the smaller moons would too. IIRC the various parts of Jupiter's ring were traced to its small inner moons .

[DDAVIS]

Anyone have any further composits they want to share? Or will we have to wait for the PDS release in order to see an improvement on what has already been posted?


This is a preliminary version of how I think the colors might look:

http://www.donaldedavis.com/2003NEW/NEWSTUFF/CASSECLIPSE.jpg

I used IR frames for red, clear filtered images (with the IR placed over it at about 30 percent opacity in 'multiply' mode to remove some of the long end of the spectrum) for green, and violet for blue. This was used mostly for the rim lighting around the planet, whose colour variations may be real but of highly uncertain actual colors. The white part of the sunlit atmosphere is overexposed and visually may well show colors similar to what the Apollo 12 crew were treated to on their way home as the Sun went behind the distant Earth. The backlit rings are patched together from different grayscale exposures and with some hand painting.

Don

[paxdan]

Very very nice Don. Thanks.

[GregM]

There is an oppourtunity for an opposing view to be imaged as a companian to this set.
Although not identical, it still might be useful for comparison.