[X] My Assistant

[Decepticon]

Note: Most of the Dione-specific discussion is in a different thread - moderator



Just before closets approach http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...s=1&brite=1
An hour later.. http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...s=1&brite=1

And the night side (I really hope we get some night side mapping. Make mapping of the moons much quicker!) http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...s=1&brite=1



And Enceladus
http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...s=1&brite=1

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Slight slip-up by Ted: it's the "anti-planet" hemisphere of a moon -- not its trailing hemisphere -- that's naturally deprived of planetshine. (Actually, it would be simpler to use the same terminology for other planets' moons that we use for our own: "nearside" and "farside".)

[tedstryk]

Slight slip-up by Ted: it's the "anti-planet" hemisphere of a moon -- not its trailing hemisphere -- that's naturally deprived of planetshine.  (Actually, it would be simpler to use the same terminology for other planets' moons that we use for our own: "nearside" and "farside".)

You are right. Leading/Trailing refers to orbital direction. Thanx for catching that one.

[Bjorn Jonsson]

I'm attaching a 6 image montage showing Dione at various times surrounding closest approach next week. This flyby is similar to the recent Tethys flyby in the sense that the phase angle prior to closest approach is very low.

The distances are relative to Dione's center.

Also I made an animation (6 MB) of the flyby:

http://www.mmedia.is/bjj/misc/css_stuff/re...ione_rev016.avi

This animation starts on October 11, 2005 at 17:33 (distance from the center of Dione: 10453 km) and ends at 18:11 (distance: 10420 km). It has a field of view of 40 degrees.

Attached thumbnail(s)