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...

[tedstryk]

We discussed it at some point. I made a false color version of it.

[ugordan]

Didn't you say that one's from C22? http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&p=13606
Is there more than one calibration observation of Saturn?

[Paolo]

Didn't you say that one's from C22? http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&p=13606
Is there more than one calibration observation of Saturn?

I checked and in fact there are others from C22. This is the label of my image, from E18

[Paolo]

It turns out Uranus was not difficult to find in E18 pictures, because they were taken while the camera was slewing.



I still can't find Neptune however

[tedstryk]

Didn't you say that one's from C22? http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...ost&p=13606
Is there more than one calibration observation of Saturn?

Yes. There are two sets. The C22 set is better though.

[ugordan]

Since we're at the topic of unremarkable Saturn sets, here's one showing the state of Cassini's narrow-angle camera after the Jupiter encounter:


Gamma-correct display version. Titan is the speck at left and appears much more red because the haze scattered blue light strongly - hence a mostly bluish halo around Saturn. This is AFAIK the first ever image of Cassini's ultimate target, taken on July 13th, 2001. The phase angle is similar to what can be observed from Earth.

As a comparison, an image taken 15 months later showing the haze is pretty much history:

[volcanopele]

Remind me at the beginning of January to post some of the Cassini images of Jupiter from February of this year.

[ugordan]

Remind me at the beginning of January to post some of the Cassini images of Jupiter from February of this year.

Why not now? Hasn't a RGB set already been released - http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=2582?

When you compare the blue channel images from Feb 2007 and May 2004, it's amazing how much change is visible in Jupiter's belts and zones even at such low resolution:

At the left is the view of Jupiter at the time of New Horizons' flyby, while the 2004 image is more typical of what Cassini saw when it flied by the planet.

[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).

[Paolo]

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).

That's definitely better than E18, in fact

[ugordan]

Here's the Cassini Jupiter 2007 set revisited:

[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....

[tedstryk]

I brought in in from some of the severely overexposed images. I may have used the set from the other Saturn- imaging orbit. I am in London now, so I am working completely from my jetlagged memory. I will check my notes when I get home.