Today Cassini will reach its apoapse (3.16 million km) and begin a new orbit around Saturn, Rev 215! This orbit includes the T111 flyby of Titan (22:50 UTC on May 7th, distance: 2721 km) and several observations, including: E Ring (April 25th, May 5th), Saturn storms (from April 26th to May 6th), inner moons (May 3rd), Dione (May 9th from a distance of 525000 km), Tethys (May 9th, from 325000 km), Polydeuces (May 9th, from 45000 km, 11 pixels across), Enceladus' plumes (May 10th, from 360000 km), Kiviuq (May 10th, from 9,85 million km, 10-hour observation), Saturn's southern lights (May 12th and May 14th), and finally Paaliaq (May 18th).

Details can be found here.

Let's hope in some great pictures, especially of Titan!

Titan observations include the following regions: during approach: Fensal-Aztlan (May 3rd, from 2.22 million km, and May 5th) and eastern Xanadu (May 5th from 1.07 million km); during closest encounter: a mosaic of eastern Shangri-La and Western Xanadu, high-res images of Hotei Regio and an imaging swath across portions of eastern Xanadu to western Quivira ending around Bilbo Colles and Erebor Mons.

Can anyone recognize the moon in this Cassini image taken on May 6th? According to the Rev 215 flight plan, it should be one of Saturn's innermost and minor moons, however the raw image page says simply that the camera was pointed towards SKY. Thanks, and by the way you should go check the latest Titan flyby imagery, there are some gorgeous pics.

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/imag...9/N00239023.jpg

With those wispy streaks, it has to be Dione.

Nice new pics of Tethys (this is a composite of two) are down. The Polydeuces images will be OK when the PDS version is available - revealing a shape at least - but not very useful right now.

Phil

Click to view attachment

One Dione...


one Tethys...


and many Enceladus in gif-movie (I used cl1cl2 as green with some adjustment ... I could not give up the color!)
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7731/1690231...08fc58f46_o.gif

That GIF of Enceladus rotating with the plumes lighting up is really, really awesome.

Thanks

Agreed!

That is a great animation. What is the cause for the upper layer of the plumes? Is that from plumes still in shadow?