Latest Looking ahead article (Rev149: May 30 - Jun 29) is up.
- Iapetus observations
- Titan-Rhea mutual event
- close (6,968 km) flyby of Helene
- Titan flyby
Interesting stuff.

A rare view of Iapetus, slight high-pass filter applied to reduce glare in the sunlit ice:

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Image of Saturn on June 4, 2011. Assembled from CB2, GRN, and BL1 images:

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Lots of Iapetus images have been posted on Cassini's raw image page here.

Iapetus' double impact basin front-n-center. June 7th, IR1/GRN/UV3.
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Much appreciated Gordan. It's great to see the old walnut moon again, and from a new angle.

Has any new terrain been revealed in this view? Obviously it isn't the best resolution, but just out of curiosity.

Imagine if you could rock Iapetus back and forth in your hand... well, this is the next best thing:

http://youtu.be/qY2DMMak5L8?hd=1

I downloaded all the flyby images this morning with the idea of assembling an animation if I find the time, but I think I'll just enjoy what has been done already.

Another random snapshot from the Iapetus sequence, June 9th, IR1/GRN/UV3:

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"Snowman" craters coming into view at the limb to the left.

Great as per usual, Gordan.

I've updated my Iapetus 'bouncy' flyby movie, which is derived from a sequence of 203 frames; tweened to 406:

http://youtu.be/qY2DMMak5L8?hd=1

as for Iapetus, my only wish would be to have high-res image - in daylight - of the snowman craters..

Its sad we don't get anymore closer flybys.

I'll take anything we can get.


Ian amazing work!

Methanovision composite [MT3,MT2,CB2] with an overlaid CB2 image to enhance cloud detail taken on June 11, 2011:

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Mike, another fantastic composition - such beauty! Keep up the great work!

Two frame blink animation of two MethanoVision [MT3,MT2,CB2] composites from June 13, 2011. Some neat storm structures. It is subtle, but a counterclockwise motion can be seen in the left swirl looking at the inner cloud motions.

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(Individual frames and processing details on flickr)

June 14, 2011 image. Not this might be similar (1 or two rotations?) to the view seen above. Note a new upwelling to the W of the bright little (cute!) cloud swirl.

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If so, that makes three seperate upwellings in a line.

I can haz mutual event?

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawi...?imageID=238919
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawi...?imageID=238924
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawi...?imageID=238928
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawi...?imageID=238938

Oo, now they're getting all fancy with their camera angles. I assume that they did that technically to take advantage of the diagonal of their square FOV being 1.4 times longer than the path straight across...but it doesn't hurt that it looks cool!!

Until someone makes an animation of this mutual event, here's a quickly trown together cross-eyed 3D view of the encounter.
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I had lunch with Carolyn Porco a couple of weeks ago and asked her about these "tourist" photos - i.e., was there valuable scientific data being obtained or was it sightseeing? She said that she actually has quite a fondness for these kinds of beautiful images. They add so much to the perception of the Saturn system as a "place," and so they are planned even though there is really no scientific data to be gleaned from them. I suspect that the positive PR impact gained from these sightseeing photos certainly is worth the hydrazine to aim the camera.

Don't go around looking for any alien bases, you might find them...

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....that is drop-dead gorgeous, Gordan!!!

SUH-WEET!

Until someone makes an animation...

Well, not exactly an animation but a 15 second movie based on the Cassini images.
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or on YouTube.

Enjoy

Astro0, very moving

Very nice and seamless, Astro0!

Holy Smokes!

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Wow, they totally NAILED it this time!

Holy smokes! Downslope flow features?

P

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Wow. These tiny moons never fail to bewilder.

... that's a pretty astonishing little body. The solar system seems to have an endless supply of surprises.


I guess this is the face that launched a thousand [space]ships. Or a thousand excited exclamations of a word that sounds like ship.

RGB composites, one in natural-ish contrast and another contrast-enhanced:

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The illuminated hemisphere seems to be the same one as the saturnshine-lit one in this image.

I think this is my favorite of the small Saturnian rocks.

I'm posting a link to my Helene 'mini-atlas' for reference:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/10795027@N08/...57624830467026/

Wow. Yet another object in the Saturn system that qualifies as one of the strangest ones I've ever seen. Maybe it's becoming necessary to redefine what strange means in this context because the 'stereotype' small and irregular asteroids/moons with nothing but craters seem to be really rare.

I get the impression that we may be looking at erosion features but I'm not sure how something like that might work.

Congratulations to the Cassini team for perfect pointing this time.

Excellent images! Ski slopes on the Saturn's moon!
Surface of Helene is really extraordinary and it looks, that it is very young.

Here's a try at a cross-eyed 3D view:
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It looks as if a surface crust is eroding away... very odd.

Phil

Here's a 'bouncy' flyby movie:

http://youtu.be/HiHSM-_fes4?hd=1

Wow. When the thin crescent slowly reveals itself to be an object coming out of the gloom....wow.

That is beautiful.

Great work Ian. I know how time consuming that can be.

Is that series cycling through images taken with different filters?

Great work, everyone.

Phil

Calypso also appears to have surface features resembling this. The resolution there is low, but we didn't notice these on Helene in lower resolution imagery, either.

To me, it looks like ring material is coating up and loading onto the surface. Then at some point, it releases and makes an avalanche that fills into the basin.

Trying to get a sense of scale, this is about the size of a big avalanche chute on Earth, but I imagine the whole motion being much gentler due to the really low gravity.

Looking at Ian's atlas, it does seem to be the case that the leading hemisphere is smooth, while the trailing is heavily cratered. My guess would be small impacts over time causing quakes to shake material down slope.

I wonder if the trailing hemisphere is spectrally redder as a consequence.

Amazing image and interesting craters and errosion of the surface.

Awesome with a capital 'awe'

I've been looking forward to this flyby for a couple of months. I get home from work hoping to browse the raw images; and come here first to find that not only was the camera pointing inch-perfect, but the raw images have been enhanced and stacked, there's a cross-eye stereo view to enjoy, and even a flyby movie on 'You tube'

Phenomenal work everybody!!

I'm sure there's a little detail to be teased out courtesy of saturnshine too.....

Incredible. Thanks again and again to the Cassini team and all of the image mavens here for providing the rest of us with a seemingly endless chain of such awe inspiring moments. Longest day of the year (almost), and I have a sudden yearning for winter.