Amazing Cassini Photo's

Hi all, very long time lurker and first poster so forgive me in advance if things go a little wrong.

Anyway I got this link from Wil Wheaton's Twitter feed and it is a collection of amazing photo's from the Cassini probe. Very hi-def and I found them fascinating. I apologise if someone has already linked to them I looked around but couldn't see a thread with them in.

Cassini's continued mission

Check out image number 7, Cassini's close up of Iapetus.

[edit on 20/4/2009 by 308]

reply to post by 308


Hey buddy, cool find, these pics are astounding.
You mentioned the close up of Iapetus, funny you should, as there's been a lot of speculation about it...

Moon With a View

Have a look, I'm still not sure what to make of it, but it's interensting nonetheless.

Great find!

Welcome to ATS friend, I'm sure you will enjoy you time here and thanks for contributing to our vast database of knowledge.

~Keeper

reply to post by purehughness


Interesting site about Iapetus although I'm a huge skeptic so I have major doubts this is an artificial moon.

I presume then that the range of mountains on image number 7 is the bulge/wall that Hoagland is going on about in the link you posted? Doesn't look too much like an engineered structure at all. Although I will say he is right about the odd shape it does appear to have peculiar features.

There are a lot of photos of Enceladus and not many of Iapetus. I must go google the Cassini probe and see if there are anymore.

Image 15 on page 2 is a very nice shot. Can anyone explain how the long streaks in the ice/snow are formed? The middle of the moon in the shot has a weird right-angle type groove.

Can someone please explain why we can get such detailed shots of this planet and can only get blurry crappy shots of the moon??

Yeah, it's a wierd site, and I still dunno what to make of it. But the whole engineered satellite thing gets 'explained' in pretty crazy detail a few pages into it.
It's a bit of a long read, but persevere and it's pretty interesting. Though I found that it did make me ask more questions than I reckon could be answered...

reply to post by kcfusion

Can someone please explain why we can get such detailed shots of this planet and can only get blurry crappy shots of the moon??

Didn't you know? There's all sorts of nonsense up on the moon, cheese rabbits for one... The US government can't have you seeing those now, can they?
I wonder if we'll get any shots of 2001's monolith on one of the moons?
I love saturn, such a beautiful planet..

reply to post by kcfusion


I presume the Japanese moon probe will beam down some really detailed shots given time. Maybe the Indian probe will also reveal something too. I saw a thread on here with a link to a video of the moon from the Japanese which looked fairly hi-def, the link escapes me at this time if I come upon it again I'll send it your way.

But you're right about poor quality photo's of our nearest neighbour. Some will point to this as Nasa not wanting us to know what goes on up there. Not sure I subscribe to that myself, still it adds to the mystery, eh?

Originally posted by kcfusion
Can someone please explain why we can get such detailed shots of this planet and can only get blurry crappy shots of the moon??

Take a penny, hold it about half arm's length in front of you.

Now focus on something beyond arms length, and look at he penny.
It'll be out of focus.

Most telescopes observation satellites like the Hubble are designed to look far out into space, and can't focus clearly on the moon, closer objects like the inner and outer planets require probes to be seen clearly, like the Voyagers, or Cassini.
Trying to use the Hubble to View the Moon, would be like using a set of binoculars to look at the wall on the other side of your room.

And trying to get a budget together to view the Moon is harder than Mercury or Mars, since both are still not very well mapped or observed.

Originally posted by kcfusion
Can someone please explain why we can get such detailed shots of this planet and can only get blurry crappy shots of the moon??

An image is only as good as its handler. A lot of lunar conspiracy theorists will take what was a good moon photo and resize it so that most of the pixels you're seeing are either interpolated, or the result of image compression. There are plenty of spectacular shots of the moon, even from amateurs, but it doesn't take an expert to screw any of them up and present them poorly. Here's an example of a good image though:
www.rogermcdonald.nildram.co.uk...