Iapetus Far-Encounter between March 25 and April 18 2006 Options

[scalbers]

Well Decepticon it could be useful, depending on where the imaging is done. I'll have to look at the animation again in the office, though I recall it seemed to mostly cover familiar territory. You might consider that on my map there are a variety of resolutions used depending on location. I know I had used images from 1.3millon km and farther though much of that territory has since been superseded by closer images. Clearly if you're in some of the blank areas any resolution would be helpful. So we might have check in more detail to more fully answer your question.

One fun thing I've been developing in my software is an option allowing me to overlay an image automatically only in those areas where the resolution (coupled with spacecraft zenith angle) represents an improvement. While other factors (such as phase angle, etc.) should also be considered it's interesting to see where a new image gets pulled in.

[TritonAntares]

Hi some 'colorful' news from Iapetus,
here a nice pic-pair from the JPL-site:

Monochrome image:
Date: 2006-04-08
Distance: 866.000 km
Resolution: 5 km/pxl

Color image:
Date: 2006-04-09
Distance: 692.000 km
Resolution: 4 km/pxl

Bye.

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Lovely piece of work. (And don't forget that good color images of Iapetus are scientifically important, since the dark material extending onto the trailing side of Iapetus seems to be distinctly less reddish than that on the leading side, supporting the new theory that the shape of the dark and light regions has been modified by the effects of warming by sunlight.)

[scalbers]

Very interesting to learn more about the pattern of colors on Iapetus. I wonder if this image is corrected to look like an RGB image would (i.e. "near-true" color) or should be categorized as false color since it is taken with the UV, G, and IR filters? Curious that CR maybe looks a bit yellower than in some of the other color releases.

[ugordan]

I'd venture to say the image looks so funny, compared to previous "true" color and false color images is because they used the IR3 filter in place of the IR1 usually used for stretched, "true-like" color (IR1-GRN-UV3). I had similar results pop up using the PDS data from the New Years flyby.

IR1-GRN-UV3, "natural-looking" color.


IR3-GRN-UV3, stretched/false color.

My guess on the true color of the Iapetus' dark stuff would be something like the first image above, but a less saturated shade of brown. The color differences across CR would be even less discernible in a RGB view, probably looking very monotone and dull.