back to article Amateur image-wrangler reveals stitched snap of Saturn's splendour

An amateur image processor has stitched together raw images from NASA's Cassini spacecraft to produce a stunning image of Saturn, seen from above on 10 October. Gordan Ugarkovic's view of Saturn Gordan Ugarkovic constructed the view from "12 image footprints with red, blue and green filters from Cassini's imaging science …

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  1. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Pint

    Stunning images indeed, Mr Ugarkovic

    Have one of these -->

    1. Psyx

      Re: Stunning images indeed, Mr Ugarkovic

      The link to his Flickr account is well worth investigating.

  2. Spiracle

    Back-scatter?

    Left-hand side of the globe is dimly illuminated by reflection from the rings, presumably.

    1. Adam T

      Re: Back-scatter?

      Yeah I noticed that too - that's some pretty serious reflection going on there. Stunning.

    2. Yag

      Re: Back-scatter?

      Yes, it's thanks to the rings.

      Phil Plait had a very interesting article dissecting this picture : http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/10/17/cassini_s_saturn_incredible_mosaic_by_gordon_ugarkovic.html

  3. JDX Gold badge

    It's amazing how computer-rendered reality can look sometimes.

    1. Alistair 3

      my thoughts too, those cloud rings just look like bad quantization artefacts on the shading of a smooth sphere

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        @Alistair 3

        "my thoughts too, those cloud rings just look like bad quantization artefacts on the shading of a smooth sphere"

        Well, you should have done it properly yourself then. The guy does something that is pretty original with public domain data, comes up with something that nobody else has done to an adequate standard, and you carp on about the fact that the quality could be better.

        So go on then, you do something that makes the rest of us go "Wow!"

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "It's amazing how computer-rendered reality can look sometimes."

      Having spent most of my career producing computer-rendered reality, I can tell you that if it looks real, it is, even if its not. Which is to say that on the occasions I have had to reproduce images of Saturn like this, most people don't know what it looks like in any detail to question it. So you can get away with murder. But if course, I have no reason to doubt these images, even if I have no idea what Saturn looks like up close.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    "a stunning image of Saturn, seen from above"

    And how do you know it wasn't seen from below and the other way around?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Well

      Maybe they just assumed that the magnetic north-pole from Saturn is the top... Or they meant above as in "from orbit"

      1. monkeyfish

        Re: Well

        I would have thought that any angle would be "from above", unless something has seriously gone wrong with the probe..

      2. Don Jefe
        Happy

        Re: Well

        Magnetic North is an arbitrary, Anglocentric indicator of 'up'. The Chinese traditionally used South as their primary direction and Joaquín Torres García has a fabulous painting illustrating the fact that the European/US concept of 'up' is a fallacy and is symptomatic of their inflated views of themselves on the global stage. Applying such Anglocentic thinking to other planets may anger their inhabitants and isn't a good way to start serious exploration of space :)

        http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Joaqu%C3%ADn_Torres_Garc%C3%ADa_-_América_Invertida.jpg

        1. Uffish

          Re: Anglocentric

          But Mercator was a Belgian !

        2. 38292757

          Re: Well

          Wait a sec! Didn't Anglocents traditionally used to orient their maps to the Orient? Did that disorientate Orientals? Is the Orient a fallacy? Is Garcia's painting as fabulous if you stand on your head?

          1. Don Jefe
            Happy

            Re: Well

            The Orient is a state of mind: It's wherever you want it to be. That's why the official name of Uruguay is the Oriental Republic of Uruguay.

            The painting is a disconcerting thing for people though, especially for such a simply drawn thing. I have a copy of the painting in the lobby at our office and it's pretty amazing people can't understand what they're looking at. The idea of 'North' as up is so ingrained in people's minds they can't picture it any other way.

            The idea of defining 'up' on sphere is pretty silly to begin with, but no sillier than people who don't understand a compass, by default, must point at least two directions. Judging by the downvotes I got earlier several people here can't see the humor in all that. That just makes it funnier though :)

    2. earl grey
      Joke

      it's easy to tell it's from above

      If it was from down under, you'd have seen its arse.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: it's easy to tell it's from above

        "If it was from down under, you'd have seen its arse."

        I think Uranus is much further away...

    3. VinceH
      Coat

      '"a stunning image of Saturn, seen from above"

      And how do you know it wasn't seen from below and the other way around?'

      nrutaS fo egami gninnuts a, seen from below

      ?

  5. phil dude
    Coat

    scale...

    scale bar...?

    P.

    1. DJO Silver badge

      Re: scale...

      FFS it's Saturn, it's diameter is not a mystery!

      If it's too hard to look up: 116,464 km which in ElReg compliant units is 12.742 Megabuses (1,000,000 London bus lengths).

    2. Martin Budden Silver badge
      Joke

      Re: scale...

      The scale bar is there: he has superimposed a standard red double-decker bus for comparison. If you can't see it you're not looking hard enough.

  6. Stevie

    Bah!

    Well done that man.

  7. Vladimir Plouzhnikov

    Music?

    The rings look seriously like a vinyl record, someone should play it. Reveal the secret messages of our diamond-encrusted Saturn overlords...

  8. rcorrect

    Looking at the blue spot (difficult to see ) on the pole, it seems that mother nature needs a graphics card upgrade. All joking aside it is cool to see a hexagon on a planet. Looking closer there is even a border around it.

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/badastronomy/10328043663/sizes/o/in/photostream/

    Also this image gets me quite excited about astronomy:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/ugordan/9328689748/

    1. rcorrect

      For those who don't know (like me) the hexagon on Saturn explained: http://news.sciencemag.org/2010/04/saturns-strange-hexagon-recreated-lab

  9. Uffish

    Nice to see an astrophoto...

    ... which hasn't had the colour screwed up to the max.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That's very clearly a mexican riding a bicycle!

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