Please excuse me if there has been a topic on this in the past.

But, i have been uncovering a few nice images hidden away in the "Raw Images" section of the official Cassini site. I work on them a little, sharpening and generally enhancing in some cases. But, Cassini does all the hard work!

I thought it would be nice to share them here. They end up on my web site too. But it probably is not as well visited as this place. These may not be familiar, even if you regularly visit the front page of the cassini site.

Saturn's Moon Dione.

Dione?Cool!Dione looks nicer than her larger sister,Rhea.

I like your website.  It's great.  Here are a couple of my favorite images from Cassini, I didn't see them on your site but I might have missed them:

Hyperion:

Phoebe:

Iapetus:

Thank you guys for your kind comments.

jsmoody : The site has really only been up and running a couple of months. Also it's a kind of policy of mine on the site to only add images that i have adapted myself, or enhanced in some way, not to just to post existing images in their original form. That's why you see imagery such as coloured Mars views, processed New Horizons imagery, and pictures such as these Cassini  ones from their "Raw Images" section.

That goes just for my site. Your images are stunning, and i think it is good to have an ongoing topic where all cassini pictures are displayed and discussed.

It pleases me a lot to know other people out there get some enjoyment from the site. Hopefully it can grow and keep on entertaining those with the same interests as myself.

I have some Cassini video clips i have made which will be posted soon. Will let you know here when they are online.

Yes, keep us up to date on your site.  I'll drop in on it occasionally, I like the photos, you've done a great job with them.

Anth-Martian wrote:

Thank you guys for your kind comments. jsmoody : The site has really only been up and running a couple of months. Also it's a kind of policy of mine on the site to only add images that i have adapted myself, or enhanced in some way, not to just to post existing images in their original form. That's why you see imagery such as coloured Mars views, processed New Horizons imagery, and pictures such as these Cassini  ones from their "Raw Images" section. That goes just for my site. Your images are stunning, and i think it is good to have an ongoing topic where all cassini pictures are displayed and discussed. It pleases me a lot to know other people out there get some enjoyment from the site. Hopefully it can grow and keep on entertaining those with the same interests as myself. I have some Cassini video clips i have made which will be posted soon. Will let you know here when they are online.

I think of all the people here,only Anth-Martian updates us with this amount of spacecraft mission photos.Keep up the good work!And I dont think its just the few here that enjoy your updating photos.What I enjoy most of these photos are the Jupiterian moons and Saturnian moons(except Titan)photos.I like the Hyperion and Phoebe moons the most.They have an interesting history which I believed.

Hi.

I did not want to add 2 topics here to let people know that a space video DVD project i have been working on now has a first preview release. So i decided a post here would be best. The fulltopic on this can be found over in the "astro photography" section of these boards.

some screen shots...

It does cover many space missions. Including Cassini. Also some fantastic work ( astro photography ) from members here.

You can watch the video and follow the projects progress here!

As i have not updated this topic in a while, i felt now would be a good time.

Cassini recently completed a fly past of the moon Rhea on August 30th 2007. I went to the "Raw Images" section at the cassini website, and found a gold mine of un-processed images to coulorize and tinker with. So, here are the results of my sunday afternoon in photoshop, working on the raw b&w images from the fly by.

Above b&w image is a selection which appeared in the raw images. They all had a white, washed out appearance. I managed to salvage the spectacular views captured by Cassini in these pictures.

More images from cassini's fly-past Rhea are at my website. 

Next week see's a fly past of saturn's intriqueing moon Iapetus. I hope to have plenty more images to work on from that close encounter.

This is hot off the press! Arriving on Earth just yesterday, and still fresh from my photoshop.

The first colour image from the upcoming Iapetus encounter ( closest approach on Monday )

I made this image from four filtered b&w images captured by cassini.

This image was taken on September 07, 2007 and received on Earth September 07, 2007. The camera was pointing toward IAPETUS at approximately 693,523 kilometers away.

More exclusive Cassini imagery can be found on my Web Site

Here are some highlights so far from the Cassini fly-past of saturn's moon Iapetus.

All these images appear on my web site, all have been adapted from Raw black and white pictures from the raw image data base at the Cassini web site.

Iapetus Encounter Pages

Dramatic views from this encounter have shown the stunning equatorial "Voyager Mountain Range" and the strange two tone nature of this moon. this moon is as mysterious as it is wonderful to look at. Hopefully this fly by can answer many questions.

Closest approach by cassini was just over 1,300 km.

Great photos!  As usual!  I love your website too.  I liked the UK Shuttle a lot.

What do you think about the dark material on Iapetus?  I noticed that in the so-called "transitional" area, between the light and dark sides, that there are a lot of craters with this dark material in the bottom.  (see photo) It reminded me of the craters near the poles on Mars that have ice in the bottom.  I thought at first that maybe a similar process was at work on Iapetus, the dark material having condensed out of an atmosphere that dissapated long ago.  Like the ice probably formed in the craters on Mars.  But the more I think about it, that seems unlikely.  Maybe the dark material is below the surfac and meteoric bombardments punched through to it and let it flow out.  I'm not sure, what are your thoughts?

The dark material seems to be mostly on the "leading" hemisphere, the side of Iapetus that always faces it's direction of travel in it's orbit.  It's like it ran into something dark.  What is this material, I've heard that it's probably some kind of hydrocarbon.  Some of the photos remind me of the infrared and radar images of Titan, with it's dark pools.  Those are probably hydrocarbons as well, probably liquid methane.  So what's going on with Iapetus?  Something similar to Titan?  What do you think?

Thanks. :)

jsmoody: This moon is very interesting, before the encounter it was assumed the dark material was on top of the white. many images show this is not the case. A few images show what could be dark on white, but mostly its the other way around.

The dark material is apparently carbonaceous molecules, according to measurements made with Earth-based telescopes. Possibly organic too.

Another fascinating feature of Iapetus is the "Voyager Mountain range" a strange formation which lays around the equator of the moon. many believe this features origin to be a collapsed ring! Possibly the source of the dark material. Later imapcts bombarding the mountain range helped distribute the dark material around the moon. There are only theories so far. Hopefully we can learn a lot from the wealth of data gathered from this fly-past.

Many do speculate about Titan's involvement, Hyperions, and also Phoebe. as being possible sources for the two tone effect. 

you are correct, the white material tends to be gathered on the trailing side of the moon, the leading part of the moon has all the dark. 

it is a lot of fun for me to speculate on just what happened here. I feel this is true space exploration. Very exciting. It has been a great week for me observing and working on images from this encounter.

Thankyou once again for your kind words. It is a pleasure to share these views with somebody like yourself. i am really glad you enjoyed them, and found them interesting.

More From the Encounter

You may be interested in this short animation featuring the Voyager Mountains. Shot as Cassini flew over them last monday.

Animation

That Shuttle was a lot of fun to watch! There are now clips of it on Youtube

Here 

It was a fantastic TV show.

I read a while back that they think the Voyager Mts. were caused by Iapetus rapidly spinning when it was young.  Then it froze solid quickly, leaving the bulge and pushing up the mountains. The expansion of the ice caused by the rapid freezing was partly responsible.  And since the moon already had an equatorial bulge due to it's rapid spin, that's another cause.  Anyway, something like that.  You'd have to read the article I guess.

That black stuff looks like our supply of oil for the next thousand years though.   

jsmoody wrote:

That black stuff looks like our supply of oil for the next thousand years though.

Sssssh don't tell them that! Or maybe do, it might provide the  incentive to fund space exploration!

Now that you say that theory again, it does sound quite familiar. I have always had a couple of problems with the ring theory. Mainly the low gravity of Iapetus. I know they say the rings were very fine particles, but i wonder what the thresh hold is for a body being capable of sustaining a ring system, even for a relatively short space of time?

As i have just read ( thanks for pointing me at it ) , The theory supporting the rapid cooling suggests isotopes in the rocks making up Iapetues which kept it extremelly hot in its early life time. The isotopes (aluminum-26 and iron-60) have a very short life span geologically speaking, when their effect stopped, Iapetus froze extremely fast. leaving it literally frozen in the shape of its primordial form.

One things for sure. The Mountain range, and indeed the whole of iapetus has had a battering. The Voyager mountains now have a look of a very worn, dusty heap. Craters are concentrated on the top, the slopes smoother, which suggests landslides, deeper crater impacts appear very elongated when they show on the sides.

If i had had to compare the look of Iapetus surface and craters to anywhere else in the solar system i would go for Phobos. We know Phobos has a thick covering of dusty regolith, iapetus seems to mimic this look.

Thanks for that. To me, that makes the most sense. Maybe that coupled with contamination from other moons can fully explain Iapetus's strange appearance.

I recently uploaded a movie i made to youtube.

It features a sequence of images from cassini taken this month. I managed to put together a time lapse movie from this sequence. The events which can be seen unfolding in the rings is quite amazing.

Saturn Video 

While i am here i will post a couple of recently added Cassini images from my site which i enhanced/worked on.

Enceladus in colour.

Dione a Mosaic image. 

Rhea, in colour

More cassini stuff can be found Here 

I made this colour image from 3 black and white raw images from the Cassini probe.

UV, IR, and Green. To make a 3 colour RGB set.

it is Saturns small moon "Epimetheus"

Image was taken on December 03, 2007 and received on Earth December 04, 2007. The camera was pointing toward EPIMETHEUS at approximately 36,696 kilometers away.

You can see more of my images latest Here

Also, what i consider to be the "Best of this years space images" all images which have appeared on my site this year. Which have either been ,coloured, or enhanced by my self. Exclusives if you like.

I will be counting views, or comments to try and work out the top image for 2007.

Hi all, happy New Year to everybody.

Cassini has wasted no time at all over the holidays. And the bottom image was made by combining 3 separate filtered images which arrived on earth only today! ( january 3rd )

Some more images i have managed to colourize from the fantastic Cassini space craft.

Dione In Colour

This image was taken on December 19, 2007 and received on Earth December 20, 2007. The camera was pointing toward DIONE at approximately 243,088 kilometers away.

Colour image was created by combining IR, Green, UV channels as an RGB set.

Saturn False Colour

This image was taken on January 02, 2008 and received on Earth January 03, 2008. The camera was pointing toward SATURN at approximately 918,217 kilometers away.

More Cassini imagery can be found on my site here.

 More great pictures both here and at your website, well done Anth Martin keep them coming