APOD: Saturns Moons Dione and Titan from... (2010 Apr 20)

APOD Robot · Post by **APOD Robot** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:53 am

Saturns Moons Dione and Titan from Cassini

Explanation: What would it be like to see a sky with many moons? Such is the sky above Saturn. When appearing close to each other, moons will show a similar phase. A view with two of the more famous moons of Saturn in gibbous phase was captured last month by the robot spacecraft Cassini now orbiting Saturn. Titan, on the left, is among the largest moons in the Solar System and is perpetually shrouded in clouds. In 2005, the Huygens probe landed on Titan and gave humanity its first view of its unusual surface. Dione, on the right, has less than a quarter of Titan's diameter and has no significant atmosphere. The above uncalibrated image was taken on April 10 after Cassini swooped by each moon the previous week.

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owlice · Post by **owlice** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:57 am

Ooooooooooooh!

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:26 am

Cassini: Flying By Titan and Dione
http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 31&t=18939

Curios · Post by **Curios** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 5:13 am

What are the artifacts in this picture? Most noticeably the "finger" like black area to the bottom right of Dione (and above and to the right) and the red/green glow coming very faintly from behind Dione? The more you zoom in, the more weird the picture gets!

wonderboy · Post by **wonderboy** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:12 am

Dione is a chalk and cheese moon in my opinion, its half smooth and half rough looking. The finger like black area you speak of is probably just part of the rough area which has been shadowed slightly. As for the red/green glow from behind Dione your either tripping or misunderstanding the fact that this picture contains both Dione and Titan (the big green like moon of saturn)

Visitor · Post by **Visitor** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 11:26 am

Curios wrote:What are the artifacts in this picture? Most noticeably the "finger" like black area to the bottom right of Dione (and above and to the right) and the red/green glow coming very faintly from behind Dione? The more you zoom in, the more weird the picture gets!

Looks to me like some sort of red/green flare was Photo-shopped over to clean up the image.

planetquinn · Post by **planetquinn** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 11:58 am

In the image, there are some dark areas above and below Dione. Not visible on my higher contrast monitor, but distractingly obvious at a broader range of values. It looks like the dark area was retouched manually.

Curios · Post by **Curios** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 12:53 pm

planetquinn wrote:In the image, there are some dark areas above and below Dione. Not visible on my higher contrast monitor, but distractingly obvious at a broader range of values. It looks like the dark area was retouched manually.

So in other words: "This looks shopped. I can tell from some of the pixels and from seeing quite a few shops in my time." Sorry, couldn't help it.

spaceboys · Post by **spaceboys** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 1:34 pm

This picture has been photoshopped. The question is what is it covering? No, wonderboy, I'm not tripping either, it's blatantly obvious that something was blacked out.

MrZorg · Post by **MrZorg** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 2:20 pm

This image is so fake looking, it looks like someone is using two hands to hold up Dione. And the lines between Dione and Titan seems like cut and paste?
Strange looking, what could cause that shadow like feature right of Dione?

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 2:59 pm

The picture is a processed picture by Emily Lakdawalla of the Planetary Society. It is a color composite from Cassini raw image data (b&w). Here is an explanation of the process Emily used to produce the image below.

Rhea on the rings with Prometheus and Janus (NASA/JPL/SSI/color composite by Emily Lakdawalla )

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:44 pm

A beautiful picture! Two minor corrections: 1) The imaging system on Cassini is the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS); SSI was the imaging system on Galeleo. 2) Titan is not "perpetually shrouded in clouds"; its surface is obscured by a haze (small organic particles, not unlike the skies of LA in the 90's. Clouds on Titan, in fact, are not incredibly common (see, for example, publications by S. Rodriguez, C. Griffith, E. Shaller, E. Turtle).

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 3:54 pm

Guest wrote:The imaging system on Cassini is the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS); SSI was the imaging system on Galeleo.

SSI in the credits stands for Space Science Institute.

wonderboy · Post by **wonderboy** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 5:03 pm

Curios wrote:What are the artifacts in this picture? Most noticeably the "finger" like black area to the bottom right of Dione (and above and to the right) and the red/green glow coming very faintly from behind Dione? The more you zoom in, the more weird the picture gets!

My apologies

I zoomed right in and I can see exactly what your talking about, it is strange, I wonder what it is they blocked out

. UFO?

Weird Alien · Post by **Weird Alien** » Tue Apr 20, 2010 9:30 pm

It's clear. The ancient giant alien spaceship orbiting Saturn has been shopped out.

wonderboy · Post by **wonderboy** » Fri Apr 23, 2010 10:47 am

Apparently the aliens were speeding, and because they never consented to their photo being taken they had the human right to demand that Nasa delete them from the shot. All they were doing was going to Dione for a pee stop and coz they were behind schedule they had to put the foot/fin/webbed/thing down.

Saddly the universal traffic police force are spread thin

Paul

steveb1965 · Post by **steveb1965** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:39 am

Why does the photo looked photo shopped. Large black area next to Dion. looks like something has be removed. maybe a UFO?

geckzilla · Post by **geckzilla** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 12:44 am

steveb1965 wrote:Why does the photo looked photo shopped. Large black area next to Dion. looks like something has be removed. maybe a UFO?

Negative. Relinking...
http://planetary.org/blog/article/00002427/

NO UFO! READ READ READ

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Tue Oct 12, 2010 4:38 am

It's just part of the conspiracy:

http://planetary.org/blog/article/00002710/

bystander · Post by **bystander** » Fri Oct 15, 2010 8:33 pm

http://asterisk.apod.com/vie ... 31&t=21564

neufer · Post by **neufer** » Thu Oct 21, 2010 2:30 pm

http://www.planetary.org/blog/article/00002724/ wrote:

A Rhea flyby and a cloudy Titan with Tethys in color
By Emily Lakdawalla Oct. 20, 2010
The Planetary Society Blog

<<Cassini took [a Titan image] with a special filter, one that only permits certain infrared wavelengths (near 938 nanometers) to pass through to its detector. At this particular wavelength, methane gas -- an important component of Titan's atmosphere that is opaque in visible wavelengths of light -- is unusually transparent. When viewed through this filter, here's what Titan looked like.

What's so exciting about this photo? Here's an enhanced version, created by dividing the image above by the blue-filter photo. This cancels out some of the blurring due to the atmosphere, making certain features clearer, namely an enormous band of clouds crossing the equatorial regions. There's also some clouds in the mid-southern latitudes, and some at the north pole. I wonder if that north polar cloud is the lakes up there evaporating as the springtime Sun hits them? The stuff evaporating from the northern lakes should, in one theory, wind up precipitating in the relatively dry south. But I am not sure if I am totally up-to-date on my Titan climate theory....

An enhanced view of Titan's cloud bands on October 17, 2010. This image is the ratio of two images taken through methane window and blue filters, which cancels out some of the blurring effect of the atmosphere and reveals surface features (which appear dark) as well as a huge equatorial band of clouds (which appear bright). It also enhances the north polar hood and reveals some clouds in the mid-southern latitudes. Credit: NASA / JPL / SSI / composite by Gordan Ugarkovic>>

Starship Asterisk*

APOD: Saturns Moons Dione and Titan from... (2010 Apr 20)

APOD: Saturns Moons Dione and Titan from... (2010 Apr 20)

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Re: APOD: Saturns Moons Dione and Titan from... (2010 Apr 20

Re: APOD: Saturns Moons Dione and Titan from... (2010 Apr 20

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Re: APOD: Saturns Moons Dione and Titan from... (2010 Apr 20

Re: APOD: Saturns Moons Dione and Titan from... (2010 Apr 20

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Re: APOD: Saturns Moons Dione and Titan from... (2010 Apr 20

Re: APOD: Saturns Moons Dione and Titan from... (2010 Apr 20

Titan ITCZ