
|
About 1 hour and 20 minutes before its closest approach to Earth at 3 hrs 28 minutes UTC on August 18, 1999, Cassini made its closest approach to the Moon from a distance of ~ 377,000 km. For a period of about 15 minutes surrounding this time, the Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) acquired a series of both narrow and wide angle images of the Moon for the purposes of calibrating the spectral and polarimetric response of the cameras and testing their various imaging modes in flight on a familiar and well-studied target. The exposure times range from 5 msec to 2 seconds, and spectral filters ranging from the ultraviolet to the near-IR part of the electromagnetic spectrum were used in this sequence. The spatial scale was 2.3 km/pixel in the narrow angle camera, and 23 km/pixel in the wide. The best of these images are shown and described below. Some have been combined into brief movie sequences. All of them have been processed to remove instrumental artifacts and the effects of cosmic ray hits on the CCD. They illustrate that the Cassini ISS cameras are functioning beautifully and promise a bonanza of imaging delights at Jupiter in late 2000 and at Saturn beginning in the year 2004. The face of the Moon seen in these images is nearly identical to that seen from Earth. |