Frames for a prometheus movie seems to have appeared in the raw images. What software do you guys use to make a GIF animation? I might actually try and make one some day! But I'm sure lots of you can do it faster and better

Photoshop CS3 for me.

Here's my version, Photoshop CS2 + Registax. Quicktime H.264 codec, 5 megabytes.

Break out the swear jar! That's incredible! There's so much going on in there, with the kinks in the F ring, the Saturn-shine side of the moon...wow!

WOW!!!!

I just blurted that out aloud the first time I saw it! Fantastic!

Sterling work as usual Gordan!

<CLUNK!> (sound of brick hitting the floor from an unspecified part of my body). Absolutely stunning, Gordan, thank you!!!

New beautiful sequence. Mimas hides Prometheus.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...ages-list5.html

it's already at page 6 of the link you put, but here's a frame:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...iImageID=171340

pretty cool indeed

Well spotted, Peter, thanks for the heads up! The rings being so flat and opaque makes for weird effects -- they're seen in shadow, even though Prometheus and Mimas are seen at pretty low phase angle, nearly fully lit.

--Emily

I'm pretty sure that I spy Pan scooting around in the background (on the far side of the rings) on some of these images too, with a bright wake in evidence.
Very nice kodakkery.

Thanks Emily for putting it all together!

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001708/

I thought I saw Pan too, but when I checked it out in the Saturn viewer on the PDS rings node, that told me that Pan had passed by earlier. But there's definitely a bright spot appearing near the outside edge of the A ring in the last few frames. I couldn't figure out what was going on so I didn't mention it in my writeup.

--Emily

I thought that was Daphnis? Analysing the ring appearance I'm inclined to think this is a very foreshortened view and the gap in the middle (visible at the end of the movie) is not Cassini Division, but Huygens Encke gap where Pan orbits (notice the ripply appearance of the outer edge of the gap). This would suggest the outernmost gap is the Keeler gap and the object Daphnis.

I think you're right. Daphnis isn't showing up in the Saturn Viewer, so I forgot to think of it, but you _can_ ask the Saturn Viewer to center the view on Daphnis, and it's centered in the right place. I'm not sure why it's not showing up, maybe because it thinks the rings are obscuring Cassini's view of Daphnis?

--Emily

On closer examination, agreed - it's Daphnis.
The largest gap visible here has a couple of diffuse ringlets within it which would suggest the Huygens gap, and I hadn't noticed the scalloping on its outer edge, which makes it conclusively not the Cassini division.

Grrr, looks like I mistyped Huygens gap when it should read Encke gap where Pan orbits.

Another long Prometheus movie seems to be online. Including shadows!
e.g.
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawi...?imageID=184013

Am still hoping we'll get some close-ups of Prometheus in the extended mission - it remains the only moon imaged from Voyager which Cassini hasn't bettered to date in terms of spatial resolution.
Does anybody know if there are plans for some Cassini close-ups in the XM????

2009 DOY 360 Rev 123 Range will be about 56 Kkm

and another in Rev 125

2010 DOY 027 Rev 125 Range will be someplace between 30 Kkm and 45 Kkm
the exact timing there is still being worked out as there's a bunch of stuff happening
right there......

Tallbear

Thanks Tallbear, I look forward to those.

Click to view attachment Detail, 200%, of PIA10593 This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 18 degrees above the ringplane on January 14, 2009:

"Half an hour after Prometheus tore into this region of Saturn's F ring, the Cassini spacecraft snapped this image just as the moon was creating a new streamer in the ring.The dark pattern shaped like an upside down check mark in the lower left of the image is Prometheus and its shadow. The potato shaped moon can just be seen coming back out of the ring. ... The F ring is overexposed in this image which has been brightened to reveal the moon."

Wow. What's the geometry of this image? We know the rings are almost edge-on to the sun, and at first it looks like Prometheus is entirely 'below' the ring plane. Is that just an illusion due to the angle and the image processing? Are we seeing half the backlit moon through the rings, with the (lighter) 'bottom' on Cassini's side? How much is shadow and how much is wake?

I'm not sure of the viewing geometry here, but at first glance at this image, Prometheus looks like a giant bar magnet - I wonder what the electrostatic potential of an icy moonlet is compared to the ring material it's dragging itself through? Could this be a factor in accretion processes?

( sighs at lack of attention during physics at school)

Moved peter59's post to the more appropriate dedicated thread to the Rev123 nt encounter.
http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?showtopic=6372