Emily LakdawallaJun 18, 2007

Cassini catches Rhea, and more, against Saturn

I was browsing through the Cassini raw images website today and came across the images necessary to create this neat view of icy, gray Rhea transiting Saturn's yellow globe, captured by Cassini on Friday:

Rhea against Saturn

Rhea against Saturn

I frequently make color composites of Cassini images, and I thought it was about time I tried to explain how to do that. I've put together a tutorial on how to create RGB color images using Adobe Photoshop. Please try your hand at it -- it's a fun way to bring spacecraft images alive. I'd appreciate feedback on this tutorial -- does anything need to be explained more? Are there any missed steps or typos? -- and once the text seems to make sense, I'll try to put together the same tutorial using a free piece of software, most likely ImageJ.

At the same time that the above image of Rhea was taken with the narrow-angle camera, Cassini was also snapping away with its wide-angle camera, which has a field of view ten times as wide as the narrow-angle one. (It sees ten times more, but at ten times poorer resolution.) The color composite below was assembled by Björn Jónsson.

Rhea, ring shadows, and moon shadows on Saturn

NASA / JPL / SSI / Björn Jónsson

Rhea, ring shadows, and moon shadows on Saturn

Cool.

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