[X] My Assistant

[dilo]

Pretty images on Jul,17 showing Rhea and, on the far right, Mimas with Saturn on background:

In the wide-angle picture I decided to register images on Rhea subject and I tried to match colors of narrow-angle, so sorry for weird Saturn border... sharpening after jpeg-artifacts removal done too.

This is the simulated view:


I wasn't able to identifiy this small object visible only in the green image, inside rings:

It seems real, could be Pan?

[ugordan]

Sweet, the narrow-angle view reminds me of this old image.

As for the mystery object, I'd say it's just noise, if it were real it would be visible in other filters as well in different positions.

[elakdawalla]

Nothing else shows up in the rings node Saturn viewer.



--Emily

[ugordan]

Quick'n'dirty stuff:



I based the color balance on this VIMS view with similar phase:

[dilo]

Not so dirt, Gordan, you did a great job!
Thanks, Emily... Gordan is right, images are very close in time so cannot be a satellite.

[volcanopele]

Nope, nothing at that location. Probably just noise. Doesn't show up in the same orbital position on in the other images

[ugordan]

This has nothing to do with Saturn, but it has to do with Rhea so...
Here's a stereo view I thought is rather nice as it gives a real sense of Rhea being round. It was done using PDS data from the 2006 Aug 17 NT flyby. The views approximate the moon's natural color.


Here's an anaglyph at 3/4th full resolution and slightly contrast enhanced. The original 4x4 mosaics weren't geometrically reprojected so this is far from perfect.


I prefer the stereo view - better colors and as it's smaller the mosaicing distortions are less pronounced, but watch out for those headaches.

[nprev]

Indeed, UG...the thumbs also really brought out the streaks...for a second there thought I was looking at Dione. Striking.

[Ian R]

Here's a stacked, IR-Green-UV composite, at a very low phase angle:



Is it my imagination, or is that bright spot at the center of the disc a result of the zero-phase 'opposition effect' ?



Ian.

[ugordan]

Is it my imagination, or is that bright spot at the center of the disc a result of the zero-phase 'opposition effect' ?

It doesn't fit to where one would expect a zero phase peak, it more looks like the subsolar point (i.e. the point where shadows and topographic relief disappear) that brought out an otherwise brighter patch at that location. The phase angle at the time was around 16 degrees and Rhea subtended only 6 arcmin in diameter so it couldn't have been the opposition surge even theoretically.