Saturn from Galileo Options

[Paolo]

I don't know whether this has ever been reported in the forum.
During E18, in December 1998, Galileo took some camera calibration pictures of Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. This is one of the clearest views of Saturn (untreated "raw" image). However, I cannot make out Uranus and Neptune from their raw image. I think they are somewhere between the cosmic rays and radiation blemishes...

[volcanopele]

Oh, you're right:

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA08899

sorry, forgot about that. Though I will note that the smudge to the left of Jupiter is Ganymede and Europa. The smudge to the right of Jupiter is Io.

[tedstryk]

I re-did the image. The old version was done pre-crash, so I have no idea what I did before. The color is based on three near infrared wavelengths (which is all that Galileo took).

[rlorenz]

I re-did the image. The old version was done pre-crash, so I have no idea what I did before. The color is based on three near infrared wavelengths (which is all that Galileo took).

Can you make Titan out ?

I remember seeing these when they were acquired (looking over the shoulder of
some Galileo people at LPL) but before released on PDS. I remember thinking they
might be interesting insofar as those would be the highest-phase-angle Near-IR
images ever acquired of Titan (at the time). Now eclipsed, so to speak, by Cassini,
although even then the photometry might be interesting re seasonal change....

[elakdawalla]

Can you make Titan out ?

See for yourself...all the images and labels for the E18 can be found here; and here's a Solar System Simulator view of Saturn from Jupiter that shows you approximately where stuff should be during the observation, which included ten images from 15:39 to 16:28 UT on December 10, 1998. There were two pointed at Titan (IR-7560, IR-7270), four at Saturn (2@IR-7560, 2@IR-7270), two at Uranus (2@IR-7560), and two at Neptune (IR-7560, IR-7270).

There was also a set taken on C22, August 13, 1999. Here is a solar system simulator view. Twenty-three Saturn images were taken in three different IR filters (IR-7560, IR-7270, and IR-8890), and then six Titan images beginning around 18:30 of the same day in filters (3@IR-7560, 3@IR-7270).

--Emily