[X] My Assistant

[Bjorn Jonsson]

This is an animation I made showing Saturn and the rings. It is based on measurements of calibrated Cassini images and should be fairly accurate, for example subtle effects like ringshine on Saturn and Saturnshine on the rings are included. The main inaccuracies I know of are that I brightened the rings at high phase angles to make them more visible and the unlit side of the rings is also too bright for the same reason. Another problem is limited dynamic range - the rings' opposition highlight is very bright so I had to darken it a bit. Otherwise I would either have been forced to 'overexpose' a fairly large area in the rings or make Saturn darker than I would have liked. Also for this reason the rings are a bit too dark relative to Saturn at 'medium' (~60 degrees) phase angles, despite the fact that as previously mentioned I brightened them at high phase angles.

The animation is encoded using DivX. If it doesn't work visit http://www.divx.com to get DivX.

 saturn_flyaround_c.avi ( 1.75MB ) Number of downloads: 938

[tallbear]

This is an animation I made showing Saturn and the rings. It is based on measurements of calibrated Cassini images and should be fairly accurate, for example subtle effects like ringshine on Saturn and Saturnshine on the rings are included. The main inaccuracies I know of are that I brightened the rings at high phase angles to make them more visible and the unlit side of the rings is also too bright for the same reason. Another problem is limited dynamic range - the rings' opposition highlight is very bright so I had to darken it a bit. Otherwise I would either have been forced to 'overexpose' a fairly large area in the rings or make Saturn darker than I would have liked. Also for this reason the rings are a bit too dark relative to Saturn at 'medium' (~60 degrees) phase angles, despite the fact that as previously mentioned I brightened them at high phase angles.


 saturn_flyaround_c.avi ( 1.75MB ) Number of downloads: 938

What time frame is this ????

I take it you flipped Saturn as the ring shadows are on the Northern Hemisphere ....
and the Southrn side of the rings are lit until 2009 and we would not see Saturn+ Rings
looking this way until perhaps 2014 or so .....
( I'm assuming this is a Cassini View ... )

Very nice....

B

[Bjorn Jonsson]

There is no specific time frame I had in mind and this is not a Cassini view - the 'orbit' around Saturn is circular. The animation is intended only to show the appearance of Saturn and the rings as the viewing geometry changes. It intentionally shows southern hemisphere winter (the sun is 20 degrees north of the ring plane) for the rather embarrasing reason that my texture map of Saturn is less detailed in the southern hemisphere than in the northern one. It is based on Voyager and HST images only since my new map incorporating Cassini data isn't quite ready yet.

I also have some animations with a specific time frame (animations of Cassini flybys). Hopefully we will see views from Cassini similar to the ones this particular animation shows in the future although I doubt the spacecraft lasts long enough for that to happen.

[tallbear]

There is no specific time frame I had in mind and this is not a Cassini view - the 'orbit' around Saturn is circular. The animation is intended only to show the appearance of Saturn and the rings as the viewing geometry changes. It intentionally shows southern hemisphere winter (the sun is 20 degrees north of the ring plane) for the rather embarrasing reason that my texture map of Saturn is less detailed in the southern hemisphere than in the northern one. It is based on Voyager and HST images only since my new map incorporating Cassini data isn't quite ready yet.

I also have some animations with a specific time frame (animations of Cassini flybys). Hopefully we will see views from Cassini similar to the ones this particular animation shows in the future although I doubt the spacecraft lasts long enough for that to happen.

funny ... Thanks for clearing that up .....
supposedly ... we have maybe a chance of making it until about mid 2012
... but there are a lot of IFs in that date !!

very nice photometric ring model ....

B