Wow... just... WOW...

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/r...s/2009/12/image

Yes, truly awe inspiring.................. vast space, loneliness yet the softness of Saturn's colours. And that 4 moon transit - how orange the disc of Titan looks and I love the way its shadow is stretched out as it nears the limb of Saturn at about 1 o'clock in the first pic of the series.

A must see if you like beautiful space pics.

...un-be-LIEVE-able!!! The quad moon transit...what a shot!!!

Pretty amazing. Also see Emily's Blog for a nice version and also an animation.

Even more awe inspiring!! Emily said that she 'just threw it together' ... well, good throw!!!

I noticed that these observations were being made in the weekly updates, but I had no idea they caught a Titan transit.

I just noticed that during the time Hubble was observing the transits, Cassini also snapped some Titan shots. If you account for light time, there's a Hubble RGB set that's taken just 6 minutes after (green filter time difference) Cassini's RGB set. As the vantage points were very different, I thought they'd make for a nice juxtaposition if put side by side. The differences in distance, resolving power and Titan's appearance speak for themselves. Click image below for the image advisory page that has some more bits of info and numbers or click here directly for the full-res view.



Saturn's left ansa was clipped off the PC chip, but the planet's not the center of attention anway. Both instruments used pretty comparable filters and both composites were processed the same way I mentioned previously.

Good eye, Gordan; interesting concept!

Really makes you appreciate the unprecedented abundance of observation platforms we have right now (at least old guys like me do!), as well as the talent of you imagewizards.

Another Gordan shot going straight to my blog I swear, Gordan, you do all my work for me! Well spotted.

Man, I wish all "work" was like this. I do this for fun! Hopefully, someone likes it sometimes

As Gordan noted that we are seeing practically opposite hemispheres, one of the first things to cross my mind was "In that case then where would Cassini have been in the Hubble shot?" After all they should be in fairly close alignment with Cassini behind Titan as viewed from the Earth. However a quick go with Celestia shows that space is big and they are not that aligned closely enough. If anyone else was wondering here is a Celestia screenshot:

Take note of the FOV size in your simulation - the entire screen is a shade under 2.5 arc minutes. In other words, the line of sight difference from a completely 180 deg angle is far less than one degree. I'd call that a pretty good alignment!

Scratch that, it doesn't work that way.