ESA showing Titan pictures right now.

[Squatch]

Incredible. Amazing clarity. Looks like a picture of Canyonlands National Park

[BlueEyedSon]

1. What is ESA??????

[Squatch]

2. European Space Agency...go to NASA.gov

follow the Cassini links, and cue up NASA-TV live feed.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. Missed the pix, just caught the interviews..... :(

[Squatch]

4. Next update at 5 EST

[BlueEyedSon]

5. Please post here if they upload any pix to the NASA web pages.

I'll check back.
thx!

[Squatch]

8. You got it.

[BlueEyedSon]

16. nm.. link here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x2253

[dogindia]

6. link

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/index.html

[jayfish]

7. They Must Not Use Web-cams In Thier...

spacecraft, like we do.

Jay

[slutticus]

9. LOL. It's frustrating.

I demand instant satisfaction. After the Mars rovers, I'm spoiled.

[jayfish]

10. I'm Actually Ripping...

us on that one. Our imaging has always seemed less than stellar (no pun intended).

Jay

[Squatch]

12. If you have a weight budget of x kg

would you skimp on imaging or sampling equipment?

[jayfish]

17. How Much Does A Modern CCD Weigh?

Now to answer your question, if I had to make the choice I would skimp on the imaging equip.

Jay

[Goldmund]

19. What bandwith do you need for hi-res color photos is a better question...

[Xithras]

25. No probes use color

All space probes take photos using black and white cameras tuned to pick up specific wavelengths (some use filters, others do it digitally). Those images are then combined after transmission and a computer spits out a colorized representation.

The first photos you see after a probe landing are always black and white because they typically haven't yet had time to process and colorize them. The final images will be MUCH clearer and more colorful.

[Goldmund]

28. I know that, yeah

I was just responding to those posters who were dissapointed that the image quality didn't match the quality of their Olympus digital cameras from Walmart.

[slutticus]

32. LOL. Yeah...bandwidth is a limiting factor here.

It must be a bitch to line up all those radio telescopes around the earth to pick up that faint signal.

Frankly, I'm fucking shocked that the pictures look as good as they do. These guys and gals (the engineers) are amazing.

[rman]

29. depends on how much time you have...

you can transport large files over a slow connection, it just takes a long time.
typically interplanetary data connections are slow.
i may be misaken but i think i've understood huygens is expected to live for some 90 minutes.

[Qutzupalotl]

24. Another factor: flight time.

The mission was launched in 1997. I don't remember what CCDs were like back then, but we've come a long way in 7 years.

We ran into this with one of the Mars missions...they put an off-the-shelf, state-of-the-art 14.4 modem in it, and launched right before 56K modems became widely available.

[jayfish]

31. Yeah, I Thought Of That After I Hit The Post...

button. It's still fun to make fun of NASA though :bounce:

Jay

[Qutzupalotl]

11. Here's an image from the CNN homepage.

No caption.



http://www.cnn.com

[Qutzupalotl]

15. Another.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html

[symbolman]

20. That looks like the

Elephant Man's cheek..

[Goldmund]

23. Or Yuschenko's

[Goldmund]

13. WICKID.

[dogindia]

14. first image

http://www.esa.int/SPECIALS/Cassini-Huygens/SEMCXM71Y3E_0.html

[dogindia]

18. no sirens yet

[Xithras]

21. Looks a lot like Mars, only dimmer

Good job NASA! They've landed on the moon, they've landed on other planets, but this is the first time they've landed on the MOON of another planet.

[Goldmund]

22. Wait til you see the color photos.

They should be orangeish.

[Minstrel Boy]

26. "Good job NASA!" Well, no: Good job, ESA! n/t

[BigBigBear]

27. Astounding accomplishment

NASA, the ESA and the ISA deserve major, major props for pulling this off.

If America can turn off their goddamn reality TV shows for ten minutes and soak this in, maybe the scientists and researchers who engineered this enterprise will get the credit, and the funding, they deserve.

We are living in a remarkable time.

[seaofcrisis]

30. indeed

it's too bad this kind of thing doesn't capture the imagination of the average person. This would be a great world if we'd all work together on cool stuff like this instead of concentrating on killing and stealing all the time.