Io over Jupiter's terminator

On March 4, 1979, Voyager 1 snapped an exquisite mosaic of Io as it completed a transit above the Jovian cloud tops.  Unfortunately, the apparent motion of Io was so great with respect to Jupiter that it is very difficult to assemble.  I still plan to do further tweaking, so this is somewhat of a work in progress.  The bit of Jupiter visible is simply the last bit of haze that caught sunlight at the edge of the day side, so there isn't much detail to be seen.  The view of Io is quite sharp.

Processed Image Copyright Ted Stryk, Raw Data Courtesy NASA/JPL

Proteus

I continue to toy with Voyager's underexposed but highest resolution image of Neptune's second largest moon, Proteus.  I think this version may be the best approximation of how it actually appears.  Be very careful with feature identification.  In once sense, the features visible are real.  However, the fainter features  are hard to interpret.   The image was so badly underexposed that Voyager only barely detected these features.  Hence, a crater might appear as a "u" shape" or even an ambiguous blip because the higher contrast areas (the side that was in shadow, for instance) but lower contrast features and craters under high solar illumination are lost or nearly totally lost.  However, some craters, including the large one in the upper right, and some grooves/fractures are visible.  Given that Proteus is in roughly the same size class as Mimas (moon of Saturn) and Miranda (moon of Uranus), it is remarkable how primitive and irregularly shaped it is.

 Here is the second best image, the lone color shot of Proteus. 

Processed Images Copyright Ted Stryk, Raw Data Courtesy NASA/JPL

Phobos 2 over Mars

Here is a view of Mars from thermoscan on Phobos 2 in 1989.  This shows some of the fractured terrain near the Valles Marineris canyon network on Mars.

  Data Courtesy the Russian Academy of Sciences.   Processed Image Copyright Ted Stryk

I'm Still Here...

Things have been quite eventful, so I have had little time for image processing lately.  Eventually I do plan to resume regular posting.  In the mean time, here is a view of Io from Galileo, taken on August 12, 1999 during the spacecraft's 22nd orbit of Jupiter.

Processed Image Copyright Ted Stryk, Raw Data Courtesy NASA/JPL

On September 29, 2009, the Messenger spacecraft flew by the planet Mercury.  The approach data was successfully obtained, but thanks to a safe mode incident, the departure data was lost.  On October 3, the spacecraft finally recovered.  It took this image through its wide angle camera that day

Only albedo features can be seen.  Had the Narrow Angle Camera taken data that day, good imagery could have been obtained, but since it would have been of little value had closer data been taken, none were scheduled until October 10th.  In that view, shown below, a few large craters can still be seen on the terminator despite a distance of 2 million kilometers - it is still better than the image above. 

While the loss of departure imagery is disappointing, all in all the Messenger flybys proved very successful.  One can only look forward to the beginning of the orbital mission next year!

Raw Data Courtesy APL/JHU/NASA   Processed Images Copyright Ted Stryk

Luna 20

On February 21, 1972, Luna 20 landed in the Apollonius Highlands, a highlands region  located between Mare Crisium and Mare Fecunditatis.  It was the only Soviet sample return mission to land in the highlands, and also the only one to return imagery of its surroundings.  Due to difficulties with the sampling apparatus, the drill only penetrated 25 centimeters and returned 55 grams of lunar material. Despite the small size, given the unique regional setting, these samples proved extremely valuable.    Reports of how much image data it returned are conflicting, but only fragments have been published.  These images were assembled by piecing together the available fragments.   Because quality varied greatly, some areas are notably sharper.

The first pair shows the drilling arm as it moves while preparing to drill into the surface. Hills can be seen in the distance in the upper left-hand corner.  One of Luna 20's antennae can also be seen (the long, skinny pole to the left of the sampling arm).  It is much closer to the camera and higher above the surface than the sampling arm, which is why it casts no shadow within the field of the camera.

The next image shows more hills and some craters near the landing site. It is possible that this segment is a continuation of the panorama above, but I am not at all sure of this.  The left hand half of the image is made of much poorer data than the right hand side.  The lower right hand area is obstructed by part of the spacecraft.

Data Courtesy the Russian Academy of Sciences.  Processed Images Copyright Ted Stryk