These images are produced using data from the Cassini Imaging Science Experiment. Any reposting or retransmission should contain credit to NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute for the data and and myself (Gregg Geist) for image processing.
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| Blue Saturn - This false color picture from February 6, 2005, is composed of three infrared images, 889 nanometers displayed as yellow, 750 nanometers displayed as bluegreen, and 727 nanometers displayed as violet. None of these colors is visible with the unaided eye, so the colors are chosen for illustrative and aesthetic reasons. For example, using the red, green, and blue channels as usual made Saturn green, the rings hot pink, and did not show as much contrast in color. Any difference in color here, as in the rings, shows a difference in color at the source. The one moon visible shows the same color as the rings, and indeed they are made of similar material (ice). Both the 727 nm. and 889 nm. IR filters are chosen because methane absorbs light in these colors. In this image, since there is methane in the atmosphere, these colors (shown as yellow and violet) are relatively dark, leaving bluegreen remaining as the dominant color. | |
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| False Color Clouds and Storms - This part of the same field above, near the lower right of the disk, and using the same color assignments. More colors show up in the image because all of the JPG files I used to produce them were equally contrast enhanced, i.e. the 889 nm. (colored yellow) image was not simply much darker than the others. This brings out details in cloud structure not seen in the previous image. Pinks represent less methane absorption, bluegreens represent more. | |
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| False Color Turbulence - This image from February 8, 2005 was produced in the same way as the previous one. It shows turbulent boundaries between currents in the atmosphere. Contrast in the three color channels was adjusted to make the colors appear similar to those in the previous image. |
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