Northern Clouds, A mosaic Options

[um3k]

Here is a three-image mosiac of clouds in the northern hemisphere of Saturn:

[SigurRosFan]

SUPERB!!!

[ljk4-1]

A New Storm on Saturn - which Cassini may have detected via radio noise outburst.

Credit & Copyright: Erick Bondoux, Jean-Luc Dauvergne

Explanation: Presently at opposition in planet Earth's sky, Saturn is well placed for telescopic observations. On Wednesday two amateur astronomers took full advantage of the situation from Melun, near Paris, France. With a 12-inch diameter telescope and web cam they recorded this sharp image of the ringed gas giant and made an exciting discovery -- a new storm on Saturn.

The storm appears as the white spot visible here in Saturn's southern hemisphere (south is toward the top in the picture). In particular, the storm seems to correspond with an outburst of radio noise detected by the Cassini spacecraft. The phenomenon is likely similar to the Dragon Storm recorded by Cassini's instruments early last year. That storm is thought to be analogous to a terrestrial thunderstorm, with radio noise produced in high-voltage lightning discharges.

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060127.html

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

That white spot still seems to be visible, im surprised there are no Cassini images of it yet.

[ljk4-1]

That white spot still seems to be visible, im surprised there are no Cassini images of it yet.

Where have you seen it? Are there images available? I am also surprised that Cassini hasn't been focusing on it. NASA certainly made a big deal out of that Saturn storm in 1994; took images of it with HST.

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/newsdesk/...leases/1994/53/

Thanks.

[JTN]

Where have you seen it?  Are there images available?

The current Cosmic Mirror links to several sources of images.

I am also surprised that Cassini hasn't been focusing on it.

How much can the Cassini mission design adapt to observe short-term "targets of opportunity" like this?
I glanced through the 500 most recent raw images on the Cassini site, since there are a lot of Saturn obs at the moment, but didn't spot anything obvious.
There are plenty of wide-angle, full-disc images, so you might expect the feature to show up in one of them by luck, but the filters used make Saturn look rather bland. (I haven't tried to work out what filters this storm is likely to be prominent in.)

[JRehling]

The current Cosmic Mirror links to several sources of images.

How much can the Cassini mission design adapt to observe short-term "targets of opportunity" like this?

Limited attitude control fuel is probably what will end Cassini's lifetime, so every pointing action cuts into the lifetime. But one act of pointing wouldn't be a huge expenditure.

For imaging a large storm on Saturn, there should be plenty of time during near-apoapsis to do so. The schedule at periapsis would be more crowded.

[dilo]

There is a nice sequence of wide-angle Saturn with almost edge-on rings (rev.21):
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...storedQ=1191293
I tried to compose with AutoStitch, which refused to do probably because perspective is slightly changed from a picture to another. I made this rough, manual stitch and the result still amazing in my opinion..

Impression is to stay very close to the planet, even if real distance is almost 300000 Km and vertical angle of view is only 10deg. Interesting knob in the F ring shadow, at te top.

[SigurRosFan]

Very ... big. Thanks Marco.