Saturn at equinox

Those are the highest resolution pictures of the Saturnian system *I* have ever seen... That was beyond incredible! Haha wow!!!!

how come we can get such detailed pics of this but not of our own moon?

Those are some awesome pictures. This is something that NASA has gotten right. We need more of these missions. Just wish it was in color.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/fe216d2ce139.jpg[/atsimg]

Here you see the stars have been blackened out.

These pictures are computer generated. Textures are horrible, far from looking anywhere near real. Totally Artificial crap that any 3DS student could do.

Originally posted by FORMe2p00p0n
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

GIVE THIS MAN MORE STARS!

That is a very good point, sir! I laugh at NASA'a pixelated MSPaint disasters. They know and we know they could film anywhere on the moon easily in as high definition as they could here, or as far away as Saturn.

reply to post by Ir0nM0nkey


Great images ... thanks mate!

reply to post by Ir0nM0nkey


you know, I find it strange there isn't any speculation about ETs on the moons of Saturn and Jupiter

Very awesome pics indeed.

Heavens forbid they show some images of the most interesting moon of Saturn, that kinder egg surprise - Iapetus.

reply to post by Solidus Green eye


I'm curious to find out which ones.

Like I said in my post, the first image, which is made of 72 separate images put together in a mosaic, probably had the stars cut out to make it look better (rather than seeing some of the star repeated in the mosaic).

Can someone explain how Titan looks the way it is in the picture, but the stars in the background has the effect of camera movement even with its explanation, "Stars in this image are smeared by the long camera exposure time of 560 seconds needed to capture the faint light on Titan." The "smear" looks a lot like motion blur to me.

Arguments:
A. Unless Cassini is perfectly still in space when capturing the picture the stars in the background should not have the "motion blur" even with the long exposure time.

B. Cassini is moving but center focused on Titan, so the surface of Titan is also blurred from movement as with the stars in the background; so Titan's shadow and surface would have the same blur effect as the stars.

This picture: inapcache.boston.com...


[edit on 20-10-2009 by johnwayne]

reply to post by johnwayne

Cassini tracks it targets. Because Titan is much closer to Cassini than the stars, the relative motions are very different. Titan is the target, the stars are not. The stars streak, Titan does not.

truly amazing the rings reming me of a old LP vinyl record from a distance...

Originally posted by Phage

Thanks, so I guess my second reasoning was sorta correct.

crazy how such massive objects can be made to look like tennis balls.

reply to post by Soylent Green Is People


Yeah I also thought that, I'm so good with graphic enhancement, I hope you can see it in the picture above.

I have a few serious problems with nasa...


1. those pictures dont even look real.. they look like they are animated.

2. our satelites above earth can zoom in and see people walking in detail... yet the satelites we send to saturn/mars etc give us this crap?

3. the argueabley MOST important information we need from saturn is high detail pics of titan.... where are they?

4. according to earlier testaments "titan" has an orange color. looks gray in these pictures?

Titan's air is predominantly made up of nitrogen with other hydrocarbon elements which give Titan its orange hue.

source:
www.solarviews.com...


Nasa in my opinion is doing one of the following

a. covering up the truth

b. isnt really exploring space

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

The reason for the controlled impact with Saturn is because they don't want to risk Cassini slamming into either Titan or Enceladus in the future. There is a very slim possibility that there could be life (however primitive) on one (or both) of these moons, and they don't want to risk contamination.

Originally posted by sciencenewby
I have a few serious problems with nasa...


1. those pictures dont even look real.. they look like they are animated.

2. our satelites above earth can zoom in and see people walking in detail... yet the satelites we send to saturn/mars etc give us this crap?

3. the argueabley MOST important information we need from saturn is high detail pics of titan.... where are they?

4. according to earlier testaments "titan" has an orange color. looks gray in these pictures?

Titan's air is predominantly made up of nitrogen with other hydrocarbon elements which give Titan its orange hue.

source:
www.solarviews.com...


Nasa in my opinion is doing one of the following

a. covering up the truth

b. isnt really exploring space

Many people here think nasa is hiding everything I also think that is BIG BS , it's ridiculous also they can publish images tha were taken some long time ago , they can do what they want

Originally posted by sciencenewby
I have a few serious problems with nasa...

1. those pictures dont even look real.. they look like they are animated.

...and what exactly is your point-of-reference for what "real" high resolution detailed images of Saturn should look like?

2. our satelites above earth can zoom in and see people walking in detail... yet the satelites we send to saturn/mars etc give us this crap?

If the U.S. has spy satellites that can see people in detail, they are not apt to sharing that highly classified technology with NASA and NASA contractors.

The pictures you see on "Google Earth" that show people are not taken from satellites -- they are taken from airplanes. Most of the "detailed close-up" pictures on Google Earth are taken from airplanes.

3. the argueabley MOST important information we need from saturn is high detail pics of titan.... where are they?

Titan is shrouded in a thick haze -- so there isn't much to look at from space using visible light. Although they have studied the clouds in visible light, such as this image:
saturn.jpl.nasa.gov...

HOWEVER, visible light is not the only tool for seeing things from orbit, and they DO have images of the surface. Cassini has used radar to penetrate the clouds. Here are pictures showing radar images of surface features:
upload.wikimedia.org...
saturn.jpl.nasa.gov...
photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov...
saturn.jpl.nasa.gov...

But to answer your question about "where are the pictures of Titan", there are several pages of these radar images of Titan and its surface here:
Link.
I only posted a few -- there are many, many more images of the surface on that website. I suggest you go there and look.

Also, the ESA (The European Space Agency), working with NASA, landed a probe (called "Huygens") on the surface of Titan. The ESA probe was taken to Titan by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Huygens took many pictures while on the way down and while on the surface:
saturn.jpl.nasa.gov...
photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov...
photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov...
photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov...

These were also found in the link I posted above. There are a lot of images of Titan there if you look.

4. according to earlier testaments "titan" has an orange color. looks gray in these pictures?

Titan's air is predominantly made up of nitrogen with other hydrocarbon elements which give Titan its orange hue.

Many of the images in the OP are "raw images" in gray-scale. If you want to see color images of Titan, there are many of them in that link I posted above.

One thing about color images though -- you will not see any color in the "raw" images from Saturn.

The reason for that is that ALL digital cameras (even yours) is basically "color blind". That is, the light-sensitive sensors that actually capture the image can only capture shades of grey. Your digital camera captures the image through a series of filters that gives the image different shades of gray based on the color wavelength of the light. A computer inside your camera then "translates" those different shades of gray as seen through the different filters and returns a "color" image to you. All this takes only a second, so you never notice. By the way the "color" image you see on your camera is not "real" color, but the best approximation of real color that your camera's computer can give you.

The camera in Cassini (and the Mars Rovers for that matter) works basically the same way to begin with. An image is taken through various filters that filter different wavelengths of light. These wavelengths correspond to different colors. The image returned by these filters strikes the photo-sensor part of the camera, which can only see differnt shades of grey -- but different for each wavelength/filter.

The difference here is that the shades-of gray images are not converted into color on the space probe, but rather those "raw" images are sent back to earth in the shades of gray. Imaging scientists on Earth then later process the raw images into "approximate true color" images (or false color, for that matter).

This is done because the raw gray-scale images separated into different wavelengths can actually contain much more information than a color image. Different materials look different under various wavelengths, so scientists use these component-wavelength images to find out more than they can from a color image.

Most of the images in the OP we recently taken (some are from a few days ago), so they probably have not got around to processing these raw images in color yet. The funny thing is that you are complaining that these raw images are not color processed yet, while most conspiracy believers complain that NASA seems to hold out on releasing raw images (which, by the way, isn't true either -- all raw images can be found on NASA's website.)

Here is a link to ALL images (not just Titan) -- Both "press releases" (the pretty ones with color) and the "raw images":
saturn.jpl.nasa.gov...

Nasa in my opinion is doing one of the following

a. covering up the truth

b. isnt really exploring space

Again, I suggest you look on the internet. The photos you mentioned that you want to see are all there in the public domain.


[edit on 10/21/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]