Rev 168 - June 17th-July 10th 2012 - Titan at distance, And non -targeted Tethys Options

[Ian R]

Here's my version of the polar cap movie:

http://youtu.be/6Z3_029xlxw?hd=1

[ngunn]

Good! It looks from both versions that there might be some smaller circulatory features at the edges of the main one. Can we telll for sure from the direction of rotation whether it's cyclonic or anticyclonic?

[Bjorn Jonsson]

There has been a lot of interesting ring images recently, e.g. this one of the F ring: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawi...?imageID=264947

[elakdawalla]

There have been a *ton* of cool images recently. I'd love to animate some of those rings images. It'll have to wait til after my vacation! And there should be a new Cassini PDS release out, right?

[Astro0]

> jasedm: BTW, Tethys encounter raws are up

Nice

[charborob]

I tried animating a series of images of the rings (raw frames number N00191994 to N00192059):
 rings.mov ( 386.3K ) Number of downloads: 518

[Bjorn Jonsson]

Looks great and makes it obvious just how variable the location of the outer edge of the B ring is.

[jasedm]

AstroO - that's a beaut! - I'm going to have to train myself on photoshop!

[Ian R]

Did this quickly on my laptop while watching Criminal Minds, so the color may not be very good . . .

[Ian R]

A big 'wow' and 'sweet' to Astro and charborob (this forum needs a 'Like' button).

[Bjorn Jonsson]

Here is an animation showing the F ring.:

 css_f_ring_20120627_p.avi ( 465.5K ) Number of downloads: 529


This is composed from images N00191724.jpg to N00191763.jpg (40 frames) and is encoded using the Xvid codec. The images were obtained on June 27, 2012 at a range of ~750,000 km. The frame rate is 8 frames/second so this looks a bit jerky. I therefore made an experimental version by 'tweening' the animation using the MSU frame rate conversion filter but it didn't work well for parts of the animation although other parts are better. Here is the tweened version:

 css_f_ring_20120627_p_msu.avi ( 1.48MB ) Number of downloads: 489

[Astro0]

There have been a *ton* of cool images recently. I'd love to animate some of those rings images. ...

Your wish is my command
http://youtu.be/T4zjYankAx0

[volcanopele]

Our official image advisory on the south polar vortex is now up:

http://www.ciclops.org/view.php?id=7239

We've released an RGB color image of the stratospheric cloud taken on June 26 as well a blue filter movie.

Color image
http://www.ciclops.org/view/7235/Titans_Co...th_Polar_Vortex

BL1 filter movie
http://www.ciclops.org/view/7236/Titans_So...ortex_in_Motion

There are also a pair of images taken by VIMS during the two recent flybys of this feature. While not included in this image advisory, ISS has observed this stratospheric cloud since at least March 27 (I should point out that we have seen the area for a longer period of time, albeit at the limb, but it isn't like feature just turned on over night. March 27 is just the earliest I can say that yep, the stratospheric cloud was there]
http://www.ciclops.org/view/7237/Winters_Coming
(yes someone on the VIMS is a Game of Thrones fan...clearly)

The movie covers a period of nine hours, with each frame separated by one hour (so that gives you a rotation period of about 8 hours, so some pretty fast winds at high altitude)

[volcanopele]

For those curious about how big this Titan south polar vortex thing is, it's about 575x784 km (360x490 mi) in size.

[nprev]

Beautiful images and a fascinating find!!! Great work, Jason!