Saturn at equinox

Saturn at equinox

www.boston.com

Checking in with NASA's Cassini spacecraft, our current emissary to Saturn, some 1.5 billion kilometers (932 million miles) distant from Earth, we find it recently gathering images of the Saturnian system at equinox. During the equinox, the sunlight casts long shadows across Saturn's rings, highlighting previously known phenomena and revealing a few never-before seen images. Cassini continues to orbit Saturn, part of its extended Equinox Mission, funded through through September 2010.

(visit the link for the full news article)

"A proposal for a further extension is under consideration, one that would keep Cassini in orbit until 2017, ending with a spectacular series of orbits inside the rings followed by a suicide plunge into Saturn on Sept. 15, 2017."


Absolutely incredible pictures. These never cease to amaze me...

www.boston.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Awesome pics, thanks for posting!

Absolutely mind blowing.
Thanks for posting this.
I wouldn't have been aware of it otherwise.
So much to discover, so little time in one lifetime.

Good thread. Nice find!

These pictures are amazing. This kind of imagery is very strikingly detailed coming from billions of miles away.

Awesome pictures!! Saturn is probably the best looking planet with the coolest features! Rings and moons, I love it. This is my favorite pic from that site. Its just nuts how thin the rings are and how small the moon is in the ring. Awesome!

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e5eae1c28265.jpg[/atsimg]

Cool. The universe is sexy.

Great find, thanks for posting it. I probably would have never come accross this info otherwise

Great shots of Saturn's moons.....

and to think this is the best picture we can take of our moon getting hit.

Mile high plume of lunar debris

funny she-ite

They really are phenomenal pics - I just can't stop looking at them !

Wow, those are amazing photographs. Does anyone know what type of camera they have on Cassini? It must take forever for it to transfer all of those images back to Earth.

Seeing the detail in these pictures makes me wonder why we don't have such detailed pictures of our own moon. Maybe they aren't worried about us seeing anything "off" in these photos.

Wow, this pictures are mind blowing. Butit does make you wonder why we don't have pictures like this from our moon or the Cydonia site on Mars...

S&F

Some of the pics have the stars cut out again.
Cool photographs!

Absolutely fantastic pictures..

Thanks for posting this.

Now my question becomes more relevant...

"Why can't they show me what's on our Moon"?

Seems weird........

peace

Originally posted by Solidus Green eye
Some of the pics have the stars cut out again.
Cool photographs!

It's also possible that because of the relative brightness of the subject matter, the exposure time was too short to capture the light of the stars.

If I went outside on the starriest of starry nights and took a picture of a streetlight bulb, the camera would need to be set to a short exposure time to see the streetlight without "overexposing" the bulb. That short exposure would not be long enough for me to capture the light from the stars.

Perhaps if the exposure time was set long enough to see the stars in these photos, the subject matter (Saturn, its moons and its rings) may be so overexposed as to not see any detail.

If the subject matter happens to be a dim moon, then perhaps the stars would show, because the exposure time would be longer.

In fact, the one photo of Titan where the stars really show up even mentions that Titan was being eclipsed by Saturn -- and therefore in Saturn's dark shadow. Obviously the exposure time was long with that photo.

Although the first picture is said to be a mosaic of 72 smaller photos, so it is possible that for that one any stars that showed on the image were removed -- or else there may have been stars that showed up multiple times in the mosaic, creating a pattern that would have detracted from the beauty of the image.


EDIT TO ADD:
Beautiful pictures, by the way, OP!


[edit on 10/20/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

Originally posted by mblahnikluver
Awesome pictures!! Saturn is probably the best looking planet with the coolest features! Rings and moons, I love it. This is my favorite pic from that site. Its just nuts how thin the rings are and how small the moon is in the ring. Awesome!

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/e5eae1c28265.jpg[/atsimg]

nice pictures... Those rings almost look artificial.

Originally posted by Ir0nM0nkey
ending with a spectacular series of orbits inside the rings followed by a suicide plunge into Saturn

Why does this get me nervous?

Amazing post! These pictures are phenomenal to say the least! Definitely a flag on this one. I am an amateur astronomer myself and love looking at "The Giant" as I call it. These photos are a dream come true to a person like myself. Thank You!!!

LifENcircleS

Truly amazing pics. Thanks for that.
S&F for you.


PEACE!!!

Originally posted by SaturnFX

Originally posted by Ir0nM0nkey
ending with a spectacular series of orbits inside the rings followed by a suicide plunge into Saturn

Why does this get me nervous?

I may be wrong, but I don't think Cassini has enough fuel to achieve escape velocity from Saturn, anyway. Therefore based on the assertion it can't be sent "away" from Saturn, it will need to stay in orbit. However, someday it will run out of enough fuel to keep it in orbit and orbital drag will slow it down. At that point, it would then be destined to crash into Saturn (or perhaps one of its moons) anyway.

NASA may as well pick the time and place to take the plunge into Saturn rather than leaving that time and place to chance.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


I checked the photographs in an picture editor, and I enhanced the lighting and the contrast. And you could clearly see that the stars were cut out.

I'll post the pics later on!