There are some gorgeous crescent saturn images coming down in the raws at the moment.

You can really see how oblate saturn is.

Yep...some lucky tourists will pay the big bucks to see that in person around the year 2300 or so...

The oblation is what struck me, too.

What are we seeing in the images that alternate with with crescent shots? I assume it's the cloud tops, and the black band at the bottom is the shadow of the rings or the rings themselves.

Definitely.

Meanwhile, we'll have to be grateful for whoever at JPL takes the trouble to post the feeds.

Yes, whoever does that is an unsung hero.

Notice the tiny black dot in the upper left of the crescent? In a similar image released last week
Ciclops such a dot was identified as Epimetheus. I wonder if that's what it is here or perhaps another satellite?

What is that little white dot at the bottom of the image?

If you turn the brightness up you can see that it's actually the rings intersecting the disc, not a moon.

EDIT: A shot that does show a moon, Titan alonside Saturn's right limb.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=79245

The bottom of the image was unfortunately clipped off on the spacecraft during readout.

Exquisite image.

It's interesting though how much 'noise' there is in the image, it appears they have barely 50% of the frame to work with...see attached image of W00016082 with the gamma correction turned way up. Do they use a mask of some sort to clean the lens smears and such?

The TV camera adds ten Earth masses to your waistline.

even more stunning raws

can someone please stitch these so we can have the entire crescent

Two stitches..

Thanks Doug, is that the e-ring showing up in the first?

Umm, i think something might have gone a little wrong with the second. i was thinking more like stiching this and this image.

That would be a blue image on the left and a methane band ( I think ) filter on the right. I did try the methane band images, but they have been 2x2 downsampled

Doug

Quick and very dirty

Click to view attachment

Ah - you mean like this.

Pity the more exotic filters are down-sampled - but hey - we get what we get

Doug

Yup, spectacular.

I think it's the G-ring.

Here's the best I could do with the latest set of raws images from Cassini:

Click to view attachment

Ian.

Below my personal attempt to process the two wide-angle crescent images W00016128 and W00016686 (for the last one, in reality, i used RGB images W00016687/8/9 and I made also an enhanced color version):
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

oooOOOooo

Wonderful! Looks like a bad b&w scan of a Chesley Bonestell painting.

Crescent Saturn Image on JPL Cassini Homepage

Bonestell's paintings are more real than reality, aren't they?

A dirty wide angle RGB mosaic from near the ring plane (groan, again!) with a moon I can't quite identify. Might be Rhea judging by the size, I dunno.
Click to view attachment

Nice mosaic!

Even though we are in a more inclined orbit, we do cross the ring plane twice an orbit

there were some nice ring images taken last time I checked the raw images...

edit - some actual links:

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=80681
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=80448
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=80417
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=80425

also nice (there are multiple filters of these it seems! looking forward to seeing this in colour - wink wink nodge nodge ;-) ):

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=80722

Yet another crescent pic; after periapsis and this time with the rings:
Click to view attachment

Real purdy

Click to view attachment

Here's the latest six-frame mosaic:

Click to view attachment

It really is a pity that the WAC doesn't seem to have an adequate enough sun shield.

Beautiful images, Ian!

Not exactly crescent images, but these raws are just... wow!

South pole vortex, appears oval:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=85891
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=85879
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=85875
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=85874
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=85872

...and now look at this:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...4/W00019111.jpg
A true example of Cassini modern art...!

Jason must have been out late last night. I'm sure after a few cups of coffee the images will be back to normal.

Saturn images are not my responsibility. I take no responsibility for any problems (or fantastic backlit mosaics) that might be associated with Saturn.

Oh gosh! There's more cruft in the optics than I thought.

Aiiieee!!! The Shoggoths!!!

New amazing Saturn/rings pictures obtained on Oct,30 with Blu and Violet filters...

Here an examples from wide cam:
Click to view attachment (stitch+combo of W019391+92/93+94)

Narrow cam details:
Click to view attachment (N68733+32). Click to view attachment (N68741+42)

and atmosphere 3D structures with enhanced local contrast (CB3 filter):
Click to view attachment (N68731). Click to view attachment (N00068744)

Check out the terminator region on top of this image:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...eiImageID=87366

Good catch, ugordan!
Here below enhanced version, toghether to another nice shot (N068709):
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Are my eyes playing tricks on me, or do some of those clouds have discernible shadows, suggesting that they're projecting a considerable height above a lower cloud layer?

Absolutely yes, David.
Look to this old press release and see also previous post on the argument.

Yet Another Crescent Image:
Click to view attachment
Wide-angle camera RGB composite, W00019472-W00019474

Saturn has a very "deep" atmosphere. The cloud-level gravity is actually only slightly greater than Earth's, and at cloud depths, the temperature is comparable to that of Earth's cloud levels. But Saturn has the lowest molecular weight atmosphere of any in the solar system -- almost pure H2. Simply put, that gives Saturn about 7 times the scale height of Earth, so cloud phenomena get some tremendous vertical stretching.

A rather colorful north polar area on Saturn is revealed in these WAC RGB composites. The unlit rings are too dim to be visible here without severe compression artifacts.
Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

My compsitions...
Click to view attachment (WideCam, RGB)
Click to view attachment (Wide, MT2+IRP0/MT2+IRP90/IRP0)
Click to view attachment (UV+B3)

A manual stitch from some clear filter images taken on Dec,06 (original picures W00020421/26/34/32):
Click to view attachment Click to view attachment
Colorization is, in reality, a sort of false color coding from original B/W.

(There are also nice G-ring pictures)

Click to view attachment

A preview of what I'm working on at the moment...

Ian.

Yay! That's the Saturn shot I've been waiting for since I saw the plans for the tour and noticed the high inclination orbits. Too bad the raws are so saturated -- hope the actual data shows more subtlety in Saturn's disk.

--Emily

Emily - there's quite a bit of detail in the region of Saturn's terminator, especially near the North pole where there are several bands and lots of clouds visible.

Click to view attachment

So far so good...

I quite like this RGB composite of recent images:

Airbag

[edited: D'oh - I see now that this is just one of the images that make up the larger images above]