A global view of Jupiter from Cassini

Filed under pretty pictures, global views, amateur image processing, Jupiter, Cassini

Go Back

This is a true color 2x2 image mosaic of Cassini images obtained on November 30, 2000 from a distance of 30 million km. The majority of global images of Jupiter includes the Great Red Spot (GRS) and in most of these the GRS is near the center of the disc or a bit towards the terminator. This one is an exception and shows the GRS near the limb.

NASA / JPL / SSI / Björn Jónsson

CB2 (near infrared) and BL1 (blue) images were used. At this time Cassini wasn't taking green filtered images so I created a synthetic green image as GRN = 1.126959 x (0.481 x CB2 + 0.519 x BL1). I also created a synthetic red (CB1) image as CB1 = 1.106251 x (0.774 x CB2 + 0.226 x BL1) using CB1, GRN and BL1 images obtained at a greater range a few weeks earlier as a guide. I then altered the color balance slightly to make the bright zones more whitish and less yellowish. The images were reprojected to simple cylindrical projection, mosaicked and then rendered using the viewing geometry Cassini had when it took one of the BL1 images. The final step was to sharpen the resulting image slightly.

Copyright holder: Björn Jónsson

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Contact us to request publication permission from the copyright holder. Original image data dated on or about November 30, 2000