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Shadowy Veil
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Saturn's southern hemisphere is glimpsed through the gossamer veil of its rings. Ring shadows adorn the low northern latitudes. This view looks toward the unilluminated side of the rings from about 22 degrees above the ringplane. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. The images were acquired with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Dec. 16, 2007 at a distance of approximately 1.5 million kilometers (908,000 miles) from Saturn. Image scale is 84 kilometers (52 miles) per pixel. |
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Alliance Member Comments
Red_dragon (Mar 12, 2008 at 8:43 AM):
I'm also sure of that. During at least part of the extended mission, no doubt Saturn images will be truly "Voyager Redux", looking it as during the Voyager flybys. It will be interesting to compare Cassini images of that future epoch with Voyager ones to see how the imaging systems have been improving with the years, from the Voyager' vidicons to Cassini's CCDs. So let's hope everything works fine up there with our "Supreme Explorer", as until now.
Mercury_3488 (Mar 11, 2008 at 5:22 PM):
Hi Red_dragon.
Yes, the northern Spring Equinox is approx 21 months away (December 2009). Also the ring shadows are narrowing & are closer to the equator. The salmon hues are definately replacing the bluer ones.
Hopefully, we will see the far southern latitudes turn bluer & the shadow rings cross the equator & widen in the southern hemisphere, from 2010 onwards.
Andrew Brown.
Yes, the northern Spring Equinox is approx 21 months away (December 2009). Also the ring shadows are narrowing & are closer to the equator. The salmon hues are definately replacing the bluer ones.
Hopefully, we will see the far southern latitudes turn bluer & the shadow rings cross the equator & widen in the southern hemisphere, from 2010 onwards.
Andrew Brown.
Red_dragon (Mar 11, 2008 at 3:32 AM):
Really beautiful pic. It's fun to compare it with http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=3262 and to see how the nothern blues are slowly being replaced with salmon hues.
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