APOD: Saturn, Titan, Rings, and Haze (2013 Jul 29)

[Chris Peterson]

Thanks Chris. :)

In a post of yours you state "I see it quite readily on my monitor, although it's subtle enough I'd probably miss it without it's being pointed out.". I am a bit surprised that you can readily see it. I can easily see all the different shades from black through to white in the grey shade bar so that does not seem to be the reason why I cannot see the jets, so the obvious inference is that the definition of my monitor is poor (or yours is much better :) ).

I do a lot of image processing, and have pretty high end display equipment, which I keep calibrated. And the jets are only a couple of percent brighter than the background. It might just be practice, too, given the amount of time I spend scrutinizing faint detail on a computer screen.

[alter-ego]

I am sorry....but if the SUN is on the other side of TITAN...then what we have IS a Solar Eclipse....just not an EARTH Solar Eclipse...But I guess it is argued that we are only looking at sunlight through the atmosphere of Titan....fine....don't call it an eclipse....but if the Moon had an Atmosphere, you would see a similar thing...and it would still be an eclipse....Scientists....Titan is still IN Eclipse....

"Since the image was taken pointing nearly at the Sun"
the Sun is NOT behind Titan but rather slightly off to the bottom right (and out of frame).

So the photo was taken June 10, 2006, ~15:40 UTC. The Solar System Simulator displays a nice prediction of the view of Titan and Enceladus (right). Physically, Enceladus is closer to Cassini than the rings. The bottom Stellarium simulation is a view from Enceladus. Although spacecraft Cassini does not exist in Stellarium, the line of sight from Enceladus to Titan is close to Cassini's, and therefore the Sun's location relative to the APOD is accurately represented. The Sun is located almost 20° from Titan, a little more than the tilt of the rings wrt the Sun (17.1°)

APOD
 

 
 

Wider Angle Simulator View from Cassini
Titan is 3.3 arcminutes
 
 
 

 
 
 
 

Stellarium View towards Titan from Enceladus
Sun is ≈20° away from Titan