Titan's 2nd flyby on Dec 13 and Celestia!

[t00fri]

Hi all,

Cassini was doing it's second close flyby of Titan on Dec. 13,
again at a reported minimal distance of about 1200 km.
For curiosity, I checked this in Celestia (CVS) without any adjustments.

I was pleasantly surprised about the result!

The minimum approach indeed occurs in Celestia on
Dec. 13 and amounts to 1863 km instead of the correct
1200 km.

Not bad, not bad at all...

Bye Fridger

PS: Similarly the recent flyby (Dec 14) of Dione is pretty
well reproduced with a minimum distance of ~85 000 KM
instead of the nominal 72 500 km. Actually the closest raw photo is at 81 300 km distance...

[t00fri]

Amazing addendum:

according to the Cassini flight schedule
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/operations/pdfs/tourSchedule.pdf

Cassini's arrival time at minimum distance from Titan is

Code: Select all

11:37 UTC


(as measured on Titan, i.e. without light travel delay of 1h 08' to Earth added).

Believe it or not, in Celestia the minimal distance on Dec 13 is reached at

Code: Select all

11:43 UTC  = 12:43 CET (see image above) !!


(again measured on Titan).

So, there is only an amazingly small time discrepancy of 6 minutes!

Bye Fridger

[symaski62]

cel://Follow/Sol:Cassini/2004-12-13T11:43:39.32075?x=8fJ2AydOjJaGDA&y=Qn6Kenmlc/P//////////w&z=ZVYJ1s17UQd8/////////w&ow=0.536221&ox=0.761136&oy=-0.364202&oz=0.022264&track=Sol:Saturn:Titan&select=Sol:Saturn:Titan&fov=25.421543&ts=0.000000<d=0&rf=104343&lm=0

12h43 CET = 11h43 UTC

11h37 ou 11h43 ???

[t00fri]

cel://Follow/Sol:Cassini/2004-12-13T11:43:39.32075?x=8fJ2AydOjJaGDA&y=Qn6Kenmlc/P//////////w&z=ZVYJ1s17UQd8/////////w&ow=0.536221&ox=0.761136&oy=-0.364202&oz=0.022264&track=Sol:Saturn:Titan&select=Sol:Saturn:Titan&fov=25.421543&ts=0.000000<d=0&rf=104343&lm=0

12h43 CET = 11h43 UTC

11h37 ou 11h43 ???

Sorry but I do not really understand (as usual). I can only guess
what you might mean:

1) In the Celestia KDE display, Middle European Time (MET) is
abbreviated as CET = UTC+1h

2) Your second "riddle" I do not at all understand .

Bye Fridger

[t00fri]

Hi all,

here is another shot 1 minute away from the minimum
distance from Titan during the second flyby on Dec 13.
Now I also quote the time in UTC, just to avoid
misunderstandings with my "french friend".

I sort of like the "message" of this image: damp
dense & smoggy...,

...and the reflection of sunlight in Cassini's antenna is
also kind of "romantic"

Enjoy,
Bye Fridger