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Cassini Image Mosaic: A Farewell to Saturn


Waspie_Dwarf

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Cassini Image Mosaic: A Farewell to Saturn

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pia17218-16.jpg?itok=zshs4mzY

In a fitting farewell to the planet that had been its home for over 13 years, the Cassini spacecraft took one last, lingering look at Saturn and its splendid rings during the final leg of its journey and snapped a series of images that has been assembled into a new mosaic. 

Cassini’s wide-angle camera acquired 42 red, green and blue images, covering the planet and its main rings from one end to the other, on Sept. 13, 2017. Imaging scientists stitched these frames together to make a natural color view. The scene also includes the moons Prometheus, Pandora, Janus, Epimetheus, Mimas and Enceladus.

arrow3.gif  Read More: NASA

 

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The shadow look like Saturn is taking a bite out of its rings. The picture is in color as the article states that red, green and blue images were combined to make a natural color image.  Color Science states red, green and blue are the three color primaries that make up white light. All other colors of light are made from these three.  Just like as modern color TV uses red, green and blue LED bulbs to make the colors on the screen.  When all are present you get white.  When none are present you get black. The rainbows we see are they three colors running together across the visible spectrum.

 

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On 11/22/2017 at 3:46 PM, brizink said:

First!... Looks fake, not saying it IS fake but it is certainly an unconvincing image.

Paperdyer has pretty much summarized it but the image is also a mosaic put together in a computer.  The objective was a beautiful and enthralling image, as the science images are usually anything but except to the folks who understand them, which does not include us, something I think they accomplished fully.  Your rejection of it is confusing as the whole reason for making it was to let people see the beauty of our solar system but if you are so inclined to see them then the raw images, with minimal processing, are readily available at a NASA web-site.   If you are so brilliant then I am sure you can find it yourself.  Everyone else, enjoy the image and it makes a great desktop.

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12 hours ago, Merc14 said:

Paperdyer has pretty much summarized it but the image is also a mosaic put together in a computer.  The objective was a beautiful and enthralling image, as the science images are usually anything but except to the folks who understand them, which does not include us, something I think they accomplished fully.  Your rejection of it is confusing as the whole reason for making it was to let people see the beauty of our solar system but if you are so inclined to see them then the raw images, with minimal processing, are readily available at a NASA web-site.   If you are so brilliant then I am sure you can find it yourself.  Everyone else, enjoy the image and it makes a great desktop.

You summed that up perfectly! Cheers to you. 

:)

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4 hours ago, brizink said:

If we're paying billions in taxes we should have a better picture.

As you believe yourself to be such an expert maybe you should tell us exactly what an image of Saturn should look like. I would suggest that you take the following into consideration so as not to look foolish :

There are many GENUINE experts on Saturn; astronomers (both amateur and professional), planetary scientists, spacecraft imaging scientist and engineers, and so on. They have vast experience and knowledge and do you know what they thing a good image of Saturn looks like? They think it looks exactly like the one you are rubbishing.

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11 hours ago, brizink said:

If you say so, it looks cheap and 3D animated maybe by 1990's standards. If we're paying billions in taxes we should have a better picture. Don't give me that distance and perspective requirements B's, anything can be photographed given appropriate distance and lighting. If the missed their opportunity to take the perfect shot then we need to spend our billions with an organization that CAN. Enough with these lame mosaics that are frankly antiquated given our technological capabilities. If you think this makes a good desktop then you need to spend more time stargazing at the the REAL THING  in a field. That's a nice picture. 

:rolleyes:  BTW, I can say with certainty that you have never viewed Saturn through an amateur telescope but I won't tell you how I know as I'd rather see you continue to embarrass yourself..

Edited by Merc14
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There is a very good reason why NASA produces mosaic images like this, and it is one that anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of photography and an ability to think logically should be able to work out for themselves... it is all a question of resolution. Sadly in this day of point and shoot compact digital cameras there are few people that actually have a rudimentary knowledge of photography any more.

So to explain, NASA could take a wide angled shot of Saturn from distance (an indeed they have many times) but to explain why they didn't, lets do a thought exercise about a photographer with a DSLR camera.

Our hypothetical photographer has a camera with a resolution of, let's say, 18 megapixels. He also has a wide-angle lens and a telephoto lens. We will assume that both lenses are of high quality and so don't reduce the resolution of images taken .

If our photographer takes an image of a scene with the wide angle lens he or she will have an image with a resolution of 18 megapixels, more than enough for most purposes. However what if he/she wants the image for scientific purposes and wants to examine the finest detail possible?

If he/she now takes 20 images covering the same scene using a telephoto lens with 20x greater magnification than the wide angle lens he will have 20 images each only covering 1/20 of the area of the wide-angled image. Crucially though, each of these 20 images will have a resolution of 18 megapixels. If he/she now creates a mosaic with these 20 images he/she will produce a single image that matches the area of the wide-angled image but instead of having a resolution of 18 megapixels it will have a resolution of 360 megapixels. Thus the mosaic image will contain much more finer detail than the wide-angle single image.

And that is why NASA produces mosaic images like this. It's not due to a lack of technology but because NASA actually know what they are doing.

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It is also worth pointing out that the image will not look like a familiar image of Saturn because it is taken from behind the planet from the point of view of the sun, hence the planets is a crescent. Because Earth orbits closer to the Sun than Saturn we can only ever observe in a full, or nearly full phase. No image like this one is possible, or ever will be possible, from Earth.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 11/27/2017 at 8:52 AM, Waspie_Dwarf said:

There is a very good reason why NASA produces mosaic images like this, and it is one that anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of photography and an ability to think logically should be able to work out for themselves... it is all a question of resolution. Sadly in this day of point and shoot compact digital cameras there are few people that actually have a rudimentary knowledge of photography any more.

So to explain, NASA could take a wide angled shot of Saturn from distance (an indeed they have many times) but to explain why they didn't, lets do a thought exercise about a photographer with a DSLR camera.

Our hypothetical photographer has a camera with a resolution of, let's say, 18 megapixels. He also has a wide-angle lens and a telephoto lens. We will assume that both lenses are of high quality and so don't reduce the resolution of images taken .

If our photographer takes an image of a scene with the wide angle lens he or she will have an image with a resolution of 18 megapixels, more than enough for most purposes. However what if he/she wants the image for scientific purposes and wants to examine the finest detail possible?

If he/she now takes 20 images covering the same scene using a telephoto lens with 20x greater magnification than the wide angle lens he will have 20 images each only covering 1/20 of the area of the wide-angled image. Crucially though, each of these 20 images will have a resolution of 18 megapixels. If he/she now creates a mosaic with these 20 images he/she will produce a single image that matches the area of the wide-angled image but instead of having a resolution of 18 megapixels it will have a resolution of 360 megapixels. Thus the mosaic image will contain much more finer detail than the wide-angle single image.

And that is why NASA produces mosaic images like this. It's not due to a lack of technology but because NASA actually know what they are doing.

Might be worth bringing up that Cassini was launched twenty years ago. It was state of the art then, but it's been in space now for 20 years without an upgrade. That term of  service is worth the investment.  

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