Yeah, The Big Picture does Saturn. What took him so long?
And yes, oh yes, you want to click that link. Wow. Bonus: Emily gets a link.
About Bad Astronomy
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
Bad Astronomy is a Wikio Top Blog! Clearly, Wikio has excellent taste. 
Bad Astronomy was chosen as one of Time.com's Best Blogs of 2009. Subscribe to BA using an RSS Feed
Death from the Skies!
Order a copy of Death from the Skies! from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or Borders.
"If things worked the way I wanted them to, any reporter about to do another 'sensational' story on deadly meteors would consult this volume, and bang! common sense would find its way into the news. How strange would that world be?"
-- Adam Savage, Mythbusters"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot UprisingSocial/Networking/Cool Stuff
DISCOVERmagazine.com: Latest Articles on Space- DISCOVER Blogs: The Loom
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:08 pm
/drool Wow, absolutely breathtaking!
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Incredible pictures! I never get tired of them…………….
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Wow…
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Does anyone know the link to the hi-res original of Photo #1?
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Wow they are the most beautiful pictures of Saturn Evah!
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Couldn’s access it yesterday evening @home, can’t access it now. But i took a look @work today, so WTF!
So it looks like i’ve to wait till tomorrow to see their Earth Day Big Pictures…
I think i’ll have a word with my internet provider later…
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:40 pm
These are incredible! If I understand it right, the natural color images are how we would see the object with our eyes? Why are they grey, and have no color?
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Wow.
I once took my wife out to a corn field far from town with a big long 8 inch telescope I borrow from UNL. My wife saw Saturn through the telescope for the first time and was amazed that it looked just like the pictures from school books. She had always assumed that they were enhanced or artist conceptions to make it look better than it really did. I then showed her Jupiter. I think she finally understood why I study astrophysics in school.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
So many wallpapers, so little desktop space.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Picture 15 really messed with my sense of proportion. Titan looked too big against the rings and Epimetheus.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Beautiful.
April 22nd, 2009 at 12:50 pm
In-fargin-credible!
The shots of Prometheus tearing thru the F-ring are astonishing. I never thought in my life I’d ever get to see something like that.
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:04 pm
What took him so long?
You do realise this is the second time, right? Not counting the Enceladus one.
I never know if hyperlinks get through the spam filter, so go to 30 May 2008 and 24 Oct 2008. Or just click on the Astronomy tag and scroll.
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:29 pm
BoneheadFX said:
I never thought in my life I’d ever get to see something like that.
Yup. I remember reading an anthology of Arthur C. Clarke stories late one night, must have been around 1972 or so, and thinking how amazing it would be to actually see some of this stuff.
So cool.
April 22nd, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Picture #22 is the most amazing f-ing thing I’ve ever seen. It literally took my breath away. God, I love Cassini.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:05 pm
There’s just something about #5 and #10 that strike me as ethereal. I think #10 is about to become my new desktop wallpaper.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Remelox Says:
I once took my wife out to a corn field far from town with a big long 8 inch telescope
This reads like Astronomy p-rn . . . I’m just say’in.
*:p
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Excuse me while I smack my gob.
WOW those are some nice images. We’re lucky to have such a beautiful ring system to study inside our own solar system.
April 22nd, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Nice images!
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:09 pm
pic 21:
That’s no moon, that’s a…. wait… nevermind, it’s Mimas
April 22nd, 2009 at 3:39 pm
DavidHW wrote:
> Does anyone know the link to the hi-res original of Photo #1?
Here you go:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Backlit_Saturn_from_Cassini_Orbiter_2007_May_9.png
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:01 pm
@DavidHW
Btw. there is no ‘original’, as “the view combines 45 images”. I just googled for “Cassini May 9 2007″.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:36 pm
#15 is unreal. The blurring on Titan makes it look like it’s hundreds of times farther away than it actually is.
April 22nd, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Picture number 9 is terrifying, except that it’s Way Over There. 18mi / pixel, and dozens of storms visible. That’s a lot of energy!
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:06 pm
WOW!
@Jesse: the very same picture I like the most.
Is really incredible what is going on in Saturns Atmosphere. It completely changed my perception of that small ringed ball I see through my telescope.
It is extraordinarily incredible!
April 22nd, 2009 at 5:45 pm
Phil,
it seems you do not like HTML hrefs?
Here is the link for DavidHW without it:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7f/Backlit_Saturn_from_Cassini_Orbiter_2007_May_9.png
And directly from NASA:
http://www.nasaimages.org/luna/servlet/view/search/when/May+9,+2007/?q=+Cassini
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I thought 9 was the best, just thinking of all that activity on saturn when it looks so tranquil from afar.
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:05 pm
[...] cassini, iapetus, mimas, rings, saturn, saturno, sistema solar trackback Leyendo el dia de hoy el Blog de Phil Plait, me encontre con el enlace a unas impresionantes imagenes de Saturno tomadas por la Sonda Espacial [...]
April 22nd, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Michael L Says:s
These are incredible! If I understand it right, the natural color images are how we would see the object with our eyes? Why are they grey, and have no color?
About 2/3 of those pics are in plain black & white – most Cassini images are recorded that way to save memory space on board as the colours usually aren’t scientifically useful. A full colour image requires taking three separate black & whites of the same subject through red, green and blue filters and combining them later to make a ‘natural colour’ image.
Ironically, a lot of things in the Saturn system are made up of mostly ice and are coloured grey anyway – pretty much only Saturn itself and Titan have attractive enough hues to make a 3-layer exposure worthwhile.
April 22nd, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Can someone explain to me picture 10? I’m naive about the space photos, but from what little I understand of the moon photos, it’s that the stars in the sky were too dim to be exposed along with the surface. The fact I can see the stars and the moon in picture 10 is confusing to me, and I would love for someone to explain to me why I can see both.
April 22nd, 2009 at 8:06 pm
The one where Mimas is just hanging there and you see Saturn’s edge in the background was remarkable. Great for a background image
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:43 am
kunigget: yes, but in 1972 we thought Saturn had five rings – very pretty, but a bit featureless. Even Pioneer 11 didn’t change that much. Voyager was a real mind-blower.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:49 am
@CJ Sevilla:
Enceladus is actually very dim in that photo. Not only is it much further from the Sun than Earth and Luna are, it was also in eclipse at the time. To capture that image, the camera would need to be set to a sensitivity that would also capture the stars in the background.
I guess what direction lighting there is comes from the rings. Notice how the unlit side is not that much dimmer than the lit side.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:46 am
[...] Phil Plait.) 0 Comments No Comments so far Leave a comment RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack [...]
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:28 am
DavidHW and jf: How about the original source of that image (as well as almost all of the rest):
http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=3192
CJ Sevilla, Simon Richard Clarkstone:
Simon pretty much nailed it, although ringshine can’t light the anti-Saturn hemisphere so to the extent that there is illumination there, it would need to come from another source, like reflected light from a moon.
http://ciclops.org/view.php?id=5309
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:33 am
@John Weiss
TNX!
I looked only for the May 2007 pics at Ciclops.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
Glad to help. We probably *should* consider upgrading our search options to make things easier to find.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:12 am
WOW, breathtaking indeed, thanks Phil. I never tire of looking at the Saturn photo gallery.
May 4th, 2009 at 2:01 am
Both BNO (Breaking News) and the Globe website have reports about the imminent shutdown of the Boston Globe:
From Twitter: “Washington Post: After negotiations fail in the last hours, The New York Times Co. readies plans to close the Boston Globe in 60 days.”
Hope “The Big Picture” finds a new home!