The Looking Ahead for revolution 82 and 83, August 22- September 6 is now up.

The Looking Ahead is now up for Rev 84. Some highlights:

"The first remote sensing observation following solar conjunction covers some of Saturn's small inner satellites. This sequence, planned for September 7, is intended to help constrain the orbital motions of these moons. A similar observation is planned for September 8. On that date Cassini will also take a look at the F ring as part of a monitoring campaign to look for changes in the various clumps, knots, and gores in the ring caused by gravitational interactions with Prometheus, Pandora, and large chunks within the ring."
"On September 12, Cassini will observe Enceladus at a low phase angle, which is good for looking at color variations across its surface."
On September 13, as Cassini approaches apoapsis, ISS will perform several observations. The first involves several of Saturn's small satellites as part of Cassini's orbit determination campaign. The second is a medium-resolution observation of Rhea's anti-Saturn hemisphere, acquired from a distance of 630,000 km (390,000 mi). Cassini will then observe an arc of material in the G ring that was recently observed to have a denser clump of material within it. Next, Cassini will observe a transit of Enceladus by Dione. Finally, Cassini will once again search for moonlets orbiting in the space between Mimas and Enceladus, a fruitful region for Cassini after the discoveries of Anthe, Methone, and Pallene.

The Ciclops Looking Ahead for Rev 85 Sept 14th-21st is now up.

Lots of ring observations including a movie of the F-Ring for an entire F-Ring "day".

Ciclops Looking Ahead Rev 86 September 21-28 is up. With the 7 day orbit, a few days for ciclops to post, and a day for me to post--it is more like Looking Behind.
For today through the 28th.
"On September 26, two satellite observations are planned. During the first, Cassini will observe several of Saturn’s small, inner satellites as part of the ongoing orbit determination campaign. Immediately afterward, Cassini will turn its cameras toward Rhea, as the spacecraft observes that icy moon’s southern leading hemisphere from a distance of 463,000 km (288,000 mi). Later in the day, Cassini will image the lit side of the B ring, looking for forming spokes."
"On September 27, Cassini will again observe Saturn’s small, inner moons to continue to refine our orbital estimates for these moons. The spacecraft will also again observe the F ring as part of the Imaging Team’s monitoring campaign. Finally, Cassini will observe the faint E ring at high phase angle. This observation will help imaging scientists better understand the size of particles within the ring."
"Rev86 finishes up with another small satellite observation on September 28. Cassini will also observe the leading hemisphere of Mimas from a distance of 1.17 million km (725,000 mi)."

Now that we're back in the equatorial plane there's too much non-Titan stuff in the latest 'looking ahead' to post the link there.
But Titan will still loom large:
http://ciclops.org/media/me/2009/5862_13725_1.jpg
http://ciclops.org/view/5862/Rev119

Hmm, I didn't know WAC could see past violet due to Voyager heritage optics?

Voyager could see ultraviolet.

Voyager narrow-angle camera is a reflector telescope just as Cassini NAC is and both camera optics pass through UV light. The wide angle camera is a refractor and the optics that both s/c share limit the shortest wavelength to 380 nm. As a result, WAC cameras do not see ultraviolet. Consequently, neither VGR nor Cassini WACs even carry UV filters.

LOL, the WAC can't see in the UV, good catch I wrote that just after I woke up, and I didn't catch the disconnect between the note written about the purpose of the observation (calibration of UV filters using Spica) and the notes about the images to be taken (calibration of WAC using Spica). What I should have looked at was what filters were ACTUALLY be used during the observations, which are VIO, BL1, and GRN. It also doesn't help that this is a ride along observation with UVIS.

I often have to be VERY careful about trusting the observation notes, which I base the Looking Ahead articles on. I also use the filters to be taken, associated graphics (like footprint maps), and notes on what object is being imaged at a particular time. But I also have to use Celestia to help confirm that Cassini will actually be observing what the notes say it will be observing, in case, for example, an observation of Titan's shadow on Saturn ACTUALLY is of Titan's shadow, or a mutual event of Tethys transiting Titan will ACTUALLY show Tethys transiting Titan.

Hey! Happy anniversary Cassini-Huygens! 12 years ago you left home and embarked on a fantastic adventure that it is still taking place as we speak...and more is yet to come!

This video gives me the chills...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PM-x7Qm7lg

Searching at youtube there aren't many videos that can capture the Cassini-Huygens experience, including the launch...here wandering if any of you guys would give it a go?...

Busy times ahead:
http://ciclops.org/view/5887/Rev_120

Great vid!

Following two are not from the launch but in their own way they give the Cassini-Huygens POV. I compiled the videos using Cassini's raw images.

Iapetus flyby September 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baaGOqIJaFM

Enceladus flyby March 2008: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5PqLPU2VA4

More moon snooker:
http://ciclops.org/view/5969/Rev121

They explain all the scientific reasons behind that image but really, does such an awesome, almost SF-like image like that need any?

Airbag

November is going to be a busy month for all those mosaic makers.

If you don't want to know what's going to happen proceed no further.

(eclipsed Titan with airglow for starters):

http://ciclops.org/view/6026/Rev122

Well the images are posted now and illumination of the darker hemisphere is very faintly visible on the longest exposures, but not nearly as obvious as the first time we noticed it.

A pretty close approach to relatively newly-discovered Anthe on Rev 123, I wonder if we get to have a squint at the little moon? Cassini passes by a little under 12,000km away...

Nope, we will be in the middle of a short downlink at the time. But never fear, the Prometheus NT encounter comes right after that, and there is imaging planned for that.

Thanks VP - shame about Anthe, but hey-ho - perhaps there'll be a more distant opportunity later in the XXM ( )
I've been keenly anticipating a better view of Prometheus since the start of the mission - Cassini hasn't (to date) improved much on Voyager's data, so it will be very interesting to see what Prometheus looks like from ~60,000km. Will it be a twin of Pandora? or almost totally blanketed with swept-up ring particles like Atlas? I'm guess-remembering its rotation is synchronous, so perhaps the anti-saturn 'end' of the satellite is much more heavily blanketed with debris than the Saturn-facing end following all those dips into the F-ring- I'll be looking forward to this one.

Jase

What a pity, that such observation is so late, but finally!
Maybe it's possible see some temporal variability at higher resolution. Does anybody know mass of deposits falling on Prometheus (say for example per annum)?