Dione in front of ringmoons

Filed under pretty pictures, many worlds, amateur image processing, Saturn's moons, Saturn's rings, Dione, Saturn's small moons, Cassini

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Cassini captured the images for this mosaic on December 12, 2011. The five images used in this mosaic were taken sequentially, and the background moons shifted positions between frames; this composition does not actually reflect a confluence of moons that happened at one distinct moment in time. From left to right, the ringmoons are Prometheus, Epimetheus, and Pandora.

NASA / JPL / SSI / mosaic by Emily Lakdawalla

Dione, Prometheus, and Epimetheus are all in the positions they occupied at 13:02 UTC; Pandora is positioned near where it was nine minutes later, at 13:11 UTC. Otherwise, Pandora would have been out of the frame.

Saturn Viewer at the Rings Node

Simulated view of Dione from Cassini at 13:02 on December 12, 2011

Copyright holder: Emily Lakdawalla

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Contact us to request publication permission from the copyright holder. Original image data dated on or about December 12, 2011