An incredible new view of Saturn from Cassini.

[kyokugaisha]

Don't know if this has been posted before but I've just come across this amazing Cassini montage processed by an 'amateur' called Gordan Ugarkovic. It's one of those images that makes you take a step back and go 'WOW'!

[iksose7]

Birds eye view of Saturn!  awesome

[simmo39]

Cool

[ronin]

Think NASA realised some time back that opening up the data to amateurs meant that some very good images were produced and that in turn meant pubilicity for them.

It is certainly impressive almost looks too perfect, however I guess Cassini is far enough out that the symetry is shown clearly and the small imperfections are lost in the distance, the sharpness of the shadow for instance. That is I guess why the person chose it to process, they could see the possibility in it. Have seen some excellent images come out of the "amateur" side since the various data was made available.

[kyokugaisha]

Processing these images is a bit of a hobby of mine too. Cassini is similar to the Mars landers in that they release raw data (uncalibrated and usually lower dpi) to the public almost as soon as it is received from the spacecraft. The cassini raws can be found here. The compression artifacts are due to this raw processing. After about 6 months the fully calibrated and cleaned up images are put onto the NASA PDS system - this is where you can put together the really top quality montages, etc. I got the data for my Dione montage from there. However I can see why Gordan didn't want to wait for this!

[JamesF]

Looks like a large ball in a soup dish

Beautiful image though.

James

[Andy_E]

Thanks for sharing, that's great! It almost doesn't look 'real' (note to conspiracy theorists, I said 'almost' )

[Astro Imp]

Fantastic, thanks for posting.

[kyokugaisha]

An example of one of the raw images - http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/rawimagedetails/index.cfm?imageID=299846

Might have a go myself

[cassiewoofer]

is there perfection in the Universe?  Undoubtedly.... Amazing Image!

[Jase_v2]

cracking post and great link to the JPL. Thanks for posting

[mikey32shaw]

Seen this last night myself on the web, was a pretty inspiring picture that made you go WOW 

[LukeSkywatcher]

Looks like a large ball in a soup dish

Beautiful image though.

James

That is exactly what i thought. Stunning image. One of my favourites of Saturn.