[X] My Assistant

[volcanopele]

Now out of solar conjunction, we can now look forward to the next Cassini of Mimas next Tuesday. During this flyby, Cassini comes within 62,000 km of the surface on Mimas at 9:49 PM PDT August 1. This will be the best Mimas opportunity of the tour. Views from the Solar System Simulator are suspect since they have not incorpated the "Tethys tweak" change to the tour, which raised the Mimas flyby altitude from 49,000 km to 62,000 km. However, they show that at C/A, Mimas should be in moderate phase observations over Mimas' trailing hemisphere. A few hours before C/A, 1.2 km/pixel scale imaging should be possible showing Herschel near terminator.

Should make for a very exciting flyby.

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Ahhhhhhhh........thats why there haven't been any new images for a while. I should check my Starry Night software more often.

Can't wait to see Mimas

[Bjorn Jonsson]

I did an animation showing the upcoming Mimas flyby:

http://www.mmedia.is/bjj/misc/css_stuff/re...imas_rev012.avi (warning: almost 7 MB)

It runs from August 1 2005 22:46 UTC (200,000 from Mimas) to August 2 2005 11:33 (also 200,000 from Mimas) and has a field of view of 0.35 degrees - identical to Cassini's narrow angle camera. The closest approach of roughly 63,000 km should occur on August 2 2005 near 04:24 UTC.

[Decepticon]

I hope we get some night side imaging. Than again maybe cassini will be going to fast for this.

[Bjorn Jonsson]

Ahhhhhhhh........thats why there haven't been any new images for a while.

And in addition to solar conjunction there seems yet again to be a problem with the raw image page at the JPL Cassini site - still no post-conjunction images .

[volcanopele]

I did an animation showing the upcoming Mimas flyby:

http://www.mmedia.is/bjj/misc/css_stuff/re...imas_rev012.avi (warning: almost 7 MB)

It runs from August 1 2005 22:46 UTC (200,000 from Mimas) to August 2 2005 11:33 (also 200,000 from Mimas) and has a field of view of 0.35 degrees - identical to Cassini's narrow angle camera. The closest approach of roughly 63,000 km should occur on August 2 2005 near 04:24 UTC.

I have posted my Mimas preview on my blog:

http://volcanopele.blogspot.com/2005/08/re...-encounter.html

Bjorn, would you mind if I posted a link to your animation, with full credit of course.

[Bjorn Jonsson]

Bjorn, would you mind if I posted a link to your animation, with full credit of course.

No problem, by all means do so.

BTW am I correct in assuming that the lack of updates to the JPL raw images page is due to some problem there (not for the first time...) and not due to lack of images from Cassini in the past few days ?

[djellison]

Solar Conjunction Bjorn

Doug

[Bjorn Jonsson]

Solar Conjunction Bjorn

Doug

Not any longer - Cassini's solar conjunction period ended 5 days ago.

[volcanopele]

Not any longer - Cassini's solar conjunction period ended 5 days ago.

Yeah, the images are coming back just fine, they are just not on the JPL raw images page, but that may change soon. There are pages for the missing images:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=46400

BTW, thanks Bjorn, the animations are great. They are especially useful when there are no official pre-encounter animations (like the official one for Enceladus-2).

[Guest_Sunspot_*]

Cant believe they haven't fixed the website, it's been broken for months

[tedstryk]

Cant believe they haven't fixed the website, it's been broken for months 

It is now showing a bunch of broken-link images...usually this means that pictures are coming.

[Decepticon]

http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/ima...heQ=0&storedQ=0

Some far off views.

Look at this neat pic of Tethys http://saturn1.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/ima...2/N00037360.jpg


Note: Sorry VP I didn't notice the upadte on your blog.

[tedstryk]

Yep, the first distant views are in....can't wait for the good stuff...here is what we have so far.

[gndonald]

The Cassini Raw Images page is now showing distant images of Mimas taken on 01/08/2005 from about 840,000km however there has not been an update for about six to seven hours.

I have to agree about the 'invisibility' of the Mimas Flyby, while Mimas may not be a large moon, it does have some of the most visualy dramatic scenery in the area.

After all who can forget either that first Voyager image of Herschel, the first Cassini image of Mimas or the almost dead-on image of Herschel taken on February 10th of this year.