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Processing ISS Images of Titan's SurfaceOne of the primary goals of the Cassini-Huygens mission, in orbit around Saturn since July 2004, is to understand the surface and atmosphere of Titan. Surface investigations are primarily accomplished with RADAR, the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS), and the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) [1]. The latter two use methane "windows", regions in Titan's reflectance spectrum where its atmosphere is most transparent, to observe the surface. For VIMS, this produces clear views of the surface near 2 and 5 microns [2]. ISS uses a narrow continuum band filter (CB3) at 938 nanometers. While these methane windows provide our best views of the surface, the images produced are not as crisp as ISS images of satellites like Dione and Iapetus [3] due to the atmosphere. Given a reasonable estimate of contrast (approx.30%), the apparent resolution of features is approximately 5 pixels due to the effects of the atmosphere and the Modulation Transfer Function of the camera [1,4]. The atmospheric haze also reduces contrast, especially with increasing emission angles [5].
Document ID
20050173947
Acquisition Source
Headquarters
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Perry, Jason
(Arizona Univ. Tucson, AZ, United States)
McEwen, Alfred
(Arizona Univ. Tucson, AZ, United States)
Fussner, Stephanie
(Arizona Univ. Tucson, AZ, United States)
Turtle, Elizabeth
(Arizona Univ. Tucson, AZ, United States)
West, Robert
(Jet Propulsion Lab., California Inst. of Tech. Pasadena, CA, United States)
Porco, Carolyn
(Cassini Imaging Central Lab. for Operations Boulder, CO, United States)
Knowles, Ben
(Cassini Imaging Central Lab. for Operations Boulder, CO, United States)
Dawson, Doug
(Arizona Univ. Tucson, AZ, United States)
Date Acquired
September 7, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2005
Publication Information
Publication: Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVI, Part 16
Subject Category
Lunar And Planetary Science And Exploration
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
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