Pictures of the VIMS data from each flyby from the nominal mission are in a paper now in press from Planetary and Space Science (also available from my website). This is basically intended to be a guide to what VIMS observations are available from each flyby: the territory covered, resolution, phase angles, etc. Thought you all might be interested, as I do think that many of the pictures are totally awesome. Objectively speaking

- VIMS Jason

Here's a preview of T36-T40:

Click to view attachment

- VIMS Jason

Very interesting paper! Thanks for sharing

Thanks once again for sharing here. Plenty to study at length!

Pity about the everyone-else-does-it-one-way-so-we'll-do-it-another central
longitude on your cylindrical map projection. Very useful paper nonetheless...

;-)

Not sure if today's press release is associated with this paper: http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/newsreleas...elease20090603/

One of the stranger press releases, I have to admit. It's not even fall yet in the southern hemisphere...

From New Scientist article on the paper to be published in NATURE regarding VIMS and clouds

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2022...tans-south.html

"The observations also turned up another surprise: the clouds seem to be shaped in part by Saturn's gravity. Rodriguez's team found unexpected gaps in the temperate cloud belt at two points, one on the side of the moon facing towards Saturn and the other facing away. They suspect that atmospheric tides driven by Titan's parent planet are somehow disturbing the convection at these points, discouraging clouds from forming.

"It does look like atmospheric tides are playing some role in cloud formation," says Henry Roe of Lowell observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. Roe believes that the temperate clouds are also feeding off some source of methane on the surface, perhaps a volcano or geyser. "I think the real story here, which we're only just beginning to acknowledge within the field, is that Titan's atmosphere is much more complicated than we ever imagined," he says."

NATURE abstract "Global circulation as the main source of cloud activity on Titan"
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v459/...ature08014.html

Titan's a world.... models always fall short of the reality.

Craig

Interesting! Thanks for the link to the paper. Nice to see some agreement on the GCMs. It would be interesting to see if they can model the latitudinal migration of the mid-latitude updrafts forming the streak clouds there (summer->fall = 40 S -> 55 S; winter->spring = 55N->40N(?/not yet observed))

Thank goodness everyone is moving away from orogenic clouds...

Welcome...

This entire process is so fascinating... watching and waiting for seasonal change in a dense, ultra cold atmosphere. Never thought I'd see this.

Craig

Right on cue, we have David Seal guest blogging at TPS:
http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00001973/

Since I'm a distant coauthor on this one, I think that it's kosher to put a copy of the paper up on my website for those of you without Nature subscriptions . . .

- Jason

Thank you very much!!

This is terrific!

Much appreciated.

Fantastic... thanks Jason!!!!

Craig

Some more .jpg's of the paper's figures, for those not interested in downloading the .pdf:

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Some more .jpg's of the paper's figures, for those not interested in downloading the .pdf:

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

Some more .jpg's of the paper's figures, for those not interested in downloading the .pdf:

Click to view attachment 36-40 are in post #2 above Click to view attachment

Rather than opening a new topic, I figure this is a good enough place to post. Emily's neat writeup on phase angles and comparison shots made me do a similar thing for Titan using VIMS data. Here's an animation of well-exposed and mostly global (a few limb cuts here and there) Titan shots that are currently available at the PDS.

Average distance was about 200 000 km and all 16 frames were scaled to the same size and magnified roughly 4x from VIMS pixel scale. Phase angle runs from 18 deg through 166 deg where apparently light starts to leak into the visual channel. Click the image below to animate.


I optimized the brightness for the low phase appearance because most higher phase shots I got are saturated in certain channels, otherwise it would create a pink appearance in areas where they're whited-out above. Also, the same caveat applies as in Emily's case - the subspacecraft point jumps all over the place so there are inconsistencies in hemispheric banding, haze layers, etc.

Might as well throw in another short VIMS Titan flyby animation for fun, taken on approach during T45.

Awesome, Gordan, thanks!

Even in visible light, Titan is a most unusual sight.

Very cool, man -- I like it! I see some changes, though, I wonder if phase angle changes and changes through time are both going on at the same time, there.

- Jason

I should think so, Jason. For one, you can really see how the hemispheric banding jumps around and changes orientation in the lower phase frames. Mind you, there could also be calibration issues on my part involved, but overall the color seems pretty consistent.