Exquisite Saturn Images Options

[ngunn]

Nice one:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...8/N00104053.jpg

[ugordan]

A rough 8 frame low phase mosaic:



I was too lazy to register the rings better.

[Stu]

I was too lazy to register the rings better.

You're forgiven. That's gorgeous!

[elakdawalla]

Awesome as usual, Ugordan.

Here's a simulated view from the Saturn Viewer. Lots of moons are visible here. The bright dot at upper left is Mimas; immediately below it is Prometheus (brightened, inside the F ring); Janus is the bright dot at left; below it is a triple R-B-G triple dot for Pandora; and Pandora actually shows up a second time below that, becuase of the time elapsed between the first frame (which was the upper left one) and the last frame (which was the lower left one), again as an R-B-G triple dot; and then over at the extreme right is Epimetheus. Looks like about 2 hours elapsed between the first frame and the last frame.



--Emily

[ugordan]

Thanks. As luck would have it, CICLOPS released a color image of Saturn today from a similar vantage point. I took that image as basis for color and fixed the above mosaic, also improving ring registration a bit and removing double moons.

Here's the result:

[tedstryk]

Both mosiacs are excellent. I will add that your old one and new one highlight an issue I often bring up, that of dynamic range. For a linear match, the new image is much better. However, the rings are easier to see in the old version, and since the human eye wouldn't have nearly as much trouble picking them up against the blackness of space as it does against the not-so-blackness of a computer monitor, nonlinear image products definitely have value.

[volcanopele]

Keep in mind that there is an even cooler, 22-frame color mosaic of Saturn and the ring system coming down tomorrow.

[ugordan]

Keep in mind that there is an even cooler, 22-frame color mosaic of Saturn and the ring system coming down tomorrow.

*sigh* Unlit side again... oh, how I yearn for a lit side mosaic like that. All these unlit mosaics and their huge contrast just look too gloomy and unfamiliar. What's it been - more than 2 years of basically just looking down on the rings?

[alan]

chaotic beauty

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...0/N00111012.jpg

[David]

chaotic beauty

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...0/N00111012.jpg

Any idea of the scale of that image?

[Shaka]

...chaotic beauty...
... or, if you prefer, the 'poster child' for life itself.

[ugordan]

A bit of stormy weather again:

[ugordan]

This just in from the PDS: A huge ring-encompassing vista made up of 30 RGB narrow-angle footprints. It's View from Iapetus's big brother (ISS_049SA_SATSYSFIA001_PRIME), targeting just the rings.



Full res view is 15000 pixels wide. That's twice as wide as the largest Saturn mosaic yet released. Too bad this sequence didn't cover the whole planet. Unfortunately, my machine can't cope with this much data so I wasn't able to align filters with sub-pixel accuracy and some color fringing is present.

Here's a diagram showing locations of 6 moons visible. Enceladus, Calypso and Rhea are out of the FOV.

[Bjorn Jonsson]

This week's images included an interesting sequence of images showing the rings through Saturn's atmosphere. The rings appear bent due to atmospheric refraction and there is filter-dependent difference in how clearly the rings are visible through the atmosphere. Six filters were used, MT2, CB2, MT1, CB1, GRN and BL1 (plus CL1 in all cases).

This is a quick and dirty CB1-GRN-BL1 composite. These filters can be used together to produce approximately true color composites.



The color is highly approximate since the original JPGs had been contrast stretched and 'reverse engineering' the contrast stretch was difficult, one reason being that the images contained no areas I was completely sure should be black. To make matters worse parts of the images were overexposed, i.e. white. The lit side of the outer B ring is visible and the rings are clearly bent near Saturn's limb where haze is also visible. It would be interesting to know the altitude of some specific location in the image above for example the 1 bar level as this makes construction of 3D computer models easier and more accurate. I've been attempting to simulate these refraction effects:



Not very pretty and the color is weird but reasonably accurate from a 'geometric' point of view. However, the accuracy could be improved.

[jmknapp]

You can really see how oblate saturn is.

Apparently the extreme oblateness can even trip up the Cassini mission planners sometimes. There was this activity planned on June 8:

FP1 observation of Rhea solar eclipse. Begin observation 2008-160T03:15; entry 03:33; exit 04:46. Phase=34.0, Local time=12.0, sub S/C=(28.0, 1.0), AD=1.3 mrad. Duration 03:30. CIRS: FP1 only, 38 RTI. FP1 to RH 160T03:15 to 04:25; FP1 10 mrad about Z 04:25 to 04:30; FP1 to RH 04:30 to 05:30; FP1 10 mrad about Z 05:30 to 05:35; FP1 to RH 05:35 to 06:45 (with return to waypoint).

But then this note was added:

There is *no* solar eclipse after all; oblateness of Saturn delays start of eclipse season from that predicted from spherical planet model. Change design to obtain stares, single scans of disk.