Cassini's Best Images

CheshireCatCO writes "The winners of the best images from the Cassini spacecraft (taken since Cassini images of Saturn were first acquired in February 2004) have been announced. The winner of best color image is In Saturn's Shadow, the stunning, high-phase portrait of Saturn from opposite the Sun. Winners of best black-and-white and best movie (both categories resulted in ties) are also available."

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[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

This is /. - everyone else is sitting in front of their computer, naked, reading /. WHILE drinking.

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[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking of staying up to do the first post of 2008, but then I remembered the different time zones made it impossible :) oh well, happy new year!

Not if you made a "Quantum Post"

[StressGuy]

I knew I'd be able to work in a Quantum Physics joke at some point, This year, I resolve to come up with one that's actually funny or, at least, amusing in some way.

Hey!

[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

You can see my house from here.

All kidding aside, the little dot in Saturn's rings is us!

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[Jeff DeMaagd]

Really? It looks like an airbrushed drawing to me.

Feliz Ano

[l1nuXB0X]

There we are, a mote of dust suspended in a sun beam, a pale blue dot.

Sponge Moon Square Pants

[Tablizer]

One of my very favorite Cassini images is an enhanced view of the odd sponge-looking moon Hyperion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Hyperion_false_color.jpg [wikipedia.org]
     

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[CheshireCatCO]

With caption at http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=1507 [ciclops.org].

Oddly, that image didn't make it into the options for the voting. (Candidates were largely nominated by visitors to the site, incidentally.) The black and white version of that image *was* in the voting, but only got 6% of the BW vote. Pity, because I agree that it's a really amazing view.

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[macshit]

One of my very favorite Cassini images is an enhanced view of the odd sponge-looking moon Hyperion

My pores feel cleaner just looking at it!

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[mangu]

Hyperion is also interesting because its rotation is chaotic. There's a project for simulating this rotation in this book [willbell.com] (chapter 12, item 12.26)

Re:Are these images from an explorer spacecraft?

[CheshireCatCO]

The images are real (and as unaltered as humanly possible). Then again, the accuracy of the figures should be an indication that this is so: the best ellipse you can draw (even with a computer) is no match for the shape of the Sun or any of the gas-giant planets, for example. (Also, most of the rings are really darned circular, especially at this level.)

Damn flash movies

[argent]

Anyone know how to download those movies and convert them to an open format so my Mac mini can actually play them? The flash format must be horribly inefficient, why do people use it?

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[CheshireCatCO]

Click the title of the movie (not the movie itself). This will open the page with the caption and (typically) three formats of the movie, including QuickTime -- which your Mac should surely play.

They upload three formats because there really isn't just one that works for everyone.

Saturn's Moon Dione. By far the best.

[JosefWells]

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/?IDNumber=PIA07745 [nasa.gov]

Big, Detailed, Beautiful.

Perfect for dual-monitor setups.