http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/imagedetails/index.cfm?imageId=4358

Cassini is still ranging over a very huge area with limited amount of fuel. Any beauty shots would have to be determined to be reasonably within its orbital path.
——
It’s also orbiting Saturn, arguably the most picturesque object in our solar system. I’d wager that it’s pretty hard to snap a picture from anywhere along Cassini’s orbit and not end up with a pretty amazing image.

Up from Earth’s Centre through the Seventh Gate
I rose, and on the Throne of Saturn sate;
And many a Knot unravel’d by the Road;
But not the Master-knot of Human Fate.

– The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Verse XXXI
http://www.therubaiyat.com/first.html

There’s also a novel by Allen Drury, The Throne of Saturn, that deals with the U.S. space program.

And to think the Cassini mission almost got cancelled…

Take four moons, some rings, a schoolbus-sized spacecraft, and mix them together. What do you get?

An awful lot of crushed ice and rock with traces of shattered spaceprobe?
(Sorry.)

Great pictures – Cassini never fails!

@16. JurijD : Interesting quote & reflections upon it – thanks.

PS. Thanks to everyone else (except the trolls) esp. the regulars (you know who you are) who comment on this blog too. Y’all provide some great food for thought and amusement – thanks. Hope I do likewise for y’all too.

As for modeling them in advance, I’m not part of NASA but I’m sure they are. If anything, that’s a certainty and the real question should be how far in advance. The Mars rovers were physically roaming a surface (given Mars HAS a surface) at low speed for a LONG time so they had plenty of chances to view the scenery. New Horizons will be a single high-speed flyby so every second is precious; the beauty shots are being planned months in advance to avoid wasting fuel or compromising primary mission objectives. Cassini lies in the middle, I’d say. Despite the longevity of the mission, Cassini is still ranging over a very huge area with limited amount of fuel. Any beauty shots would have to be determined to be reasonably within its orbital path.

Melville was wrong. It took thousands of people from all walks of life from two different continents to get the Cassini-Huygens mission where it is today. The robotic astronaut that they seated among the moons of Saturn is a testament that they were not unnecessary neither individually or as a whole.

Oddly, I get absolutely no impression of the relative distance Dione is from the camera or from more-distant Titan. Well, it feels odd, but I guess it isn’t really, because there are no distance cues.

http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=25587

I have a burning question. What do astronomers (planetary scientists?) actually learn from new photographs like these? I’m sure scientists do learn a lot, but all I see here is a pretty (awesome) picture. Do multiple images like these add incrementally to our knowledge of… something?

To elaborate, don’t we have thousands of images of each of these objects in the image above? In different regions of the spectra?

My view (please correct me): The only thing I can think of is that Cassini snaps these shots at very opportune moments on its way to some serious study elsewhere in that system. Which begets the question – are these scenarios modeled before the camera gets the command to snap?

(Before the mob beats me up…) Let me repeat that these pictures are beautiful.

Sorry, couldn’t resist.