[X] My Assistant

[Decepticon]

Another flyby coming soon. Interesting observations include radar swath of Huygens landing site.

Just before CA. http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...porbs=1&brite=1

From above... http://space.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/wspace?t...porbs=1&brite=1

I really missed VP encounter updates So I tried my best at showing the Hemisphere to be imaged during the flyby.

[alan]

One of the most exciting questions for me is, if the radar swath data will result in a definite decision how the Huygens mosaic and Cassini ISS/VIMS correlate.
Some month ago I tried to find this correlation, with the result that I felt I had to introduce a relatively large calibration mismatch to find a good visual agreement of Huygens and ISS. But now it has come to my knowledge that Huygens radar, as well as radar tracking of Huygens from earth, seems to be in good agreement with the timer height calibration, so it looks as I have to give up this idea.
http://www.beugungsbild.de/huygens/ISS_huy...correlate3.html
--René

The mosaic released by DISR was rotated counterclockwise about 20 degrees. Have you tried matching it that way? Perhaps with a spot about 30 km north of where you have it.

[RPascal]

The mosaic released by DISR was rotated counterclockwise about 20 degrees. Have you tried matching it that way? Perhaps with a spot about 30 km north of where you have it.

It was very valuable to mention it again, Alan. I read it in Emily Lakdawalla's weblog, but somehow I lost sight of that information. I was also told by a friend who visited the DPS conference and heard Larry Soderblom's talk. If I am informed correctly, the direction information now was gatherded by using the variable field strenght of the transmitter signal of Huygens, that did not have a rotational symmetric characteristic, and correlating that with the image that was taken a moment before. So for every image there is a direction information that is independent from the sun sensor.
With that new orientation, the best fit should be as in the image below. This analogy still is not sooo good, but it is better than in my previous attempt.
Placing it perhaps 40km northwest of that position may also be possible (on top of that pale triangular formation), but I think the Huygens landing site would be too far off from the position that was calculated.



One should also keep in mind that it is very difficult to make a correct large scale albedo adjustment in the mosaics. I am quite sure that north of the bright "highland" there is a somewhat darker area, resulting in this triangular shape of the highland region, but it may well be that my photometric correction leaves it slightly darker than it is in reality.

--René