[X] My Assistant

[dilo]

I do not know is only my impression, but in the most recent wide and narrow angle images I noticed a lot of diffraction features, probably caused by increased amount of particles on the front lens... they are more noticeable in uniform, low contrast images; see for example:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...1/W00006832.jpg
Do someone has an explaination to this?

[garybeau]

I do not know is only my impression, but in the most recent wide and narrow angle images I noticed a lot of diffraction features, probably caused by increased amount of particles on the front lens... they are more noticeable in uniform, low contrast images; see for example:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...1/W00006832.jpg
Do someone has an explaination to this?

It does indeed look like dust on the CCD. I get the same looking rings when taking ccd images with a telescope. It doesn't seem very probable that dust could migrate that close to the ccd. If the dust was on the lens, I would expect it to be more diffuse.

[dilo]

It does indeed look like dust on the CCD. I get the same looking rings when taking ccd images with a telescope. It doesn't seem very probable that dust could migrate that close to the ccd. If the dust was on the lens, I would expect it to be more diffuse.

Are you sure, garybeau?
I always thinked that dust on the sensor should produce almost poiny-like signature, especially if aperture ratio is high... I have impression they are completely defocused images reproducing aperture profile, so they should be far from focal plane... pls, correct me if I'm wrong!