Saturn's cloud bands

Comments and questions about the APOD on the main view screen.
tkane
Asternaut
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Joined: Wed May 04, 2005 3:01 pm

Saturn's cloud bands

Post by tkane » Wed May 04, 2005 3:05 pm

In today's APOD (5/4/05) Saturn's cloud bands on the bottom appear to be roughly parallel to ring plane, but the clouds bands on the top appear to be skewed. Why is that?

rperezu
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Joined: Wed May 04, 2005 2:51 pm
Location: Mexico

Ringshine

Post by rperezu » Wed May 04, 2005 3:33 pm

Am I imagining things, or in the picture of May 4 2005 (APOD) we can see some ringshine on the night part of Saturn?. It is only visible in my LCD monitor, but should be easily visible with some image processing.

Greetings from Mexico.
Roberto Pérez
México City, México

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BMAONE23
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Post by BMAONE23 » Wed May 04, 2005 5:08 pm

It may be just an optical illusion caused by the ring shadow.

Dan Cordell
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Post by Dan Cordell » Thu May 05, 2005 6:23 pm

BMAONE23 wrote:It may be just an optical illusion caused by the ring shadow.
Correct.
Dan Cordell, Giant Space Cow

Dan Cordell
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Post by Dan Cordell » Thu May 05, 2005 6:26 pm

It's an enhanced-color image, so probably not, although it's possible. I'd have take a look at the non-enhanced version to draw any sort of conclusion.
Dan Cordell, Giant Space Cow