Grand Tour Saturn and the Icy Satellites

Tips for creating and manipulating planet textures for Celestia.
Avatar
Topic author
Shadow-Dragon-777
Posts: 80
Joined: 03.11.2021
Age: 30
With us: 3 years 1 month
Location: A Galaxy Far Far Away....

Grand Tour Saturn and the Icy Satellites

Post #1by Shadow-Dragon-777 » 06.03.2022, 23:40

Saturn is the most iconic planet in the Solar System after Earth. It's rings have fascinated astronomers since their discovery in the 17th century by Galileo. It is known that Saturn also hosts arguably the Solar System's most intriguing moon, Titan. I have covered Titan in another addon dedicated to it.
GRAND TOUR TITAN

Titan is not the only round thing orbiting Saturn. Along with it's rings and Titan are several satellites each with their own interesting things going on.

Mimas is egg-shaped and has a crater so large, it looks like the Death Star!

Enceladus is perhaps most famous of these secondary moons for its cryovolcanoes. The possibility of life on this moon s so significant the Cassini mission was deorbited rather than risk contaminating it. The volcanoes are caused by a resonance with Dione.

Enceladus.png
Enceladus with its cracks


Tethys resembles a cyclops eye with Odysseus. It's opposite side features fractures from the impact that caused it.

Dione is crisscrossed by fractures all over. These fractures are perhaps among the youngest features on it's surface and could imply continued tectonic activity

Dione.png
Dione with its fractures in high resolution


Rhea is very old, it may lack geologic activity though evidence indicates it may have had rings of its own or still does.

Iapetus is a bizarre object. It is covered in scars from several impacts large enough to have almost shattered it while its leading side is coated in a rust colored material and its equator has a mountain range twice as tall as Mount Everest.

Iapetus.png
Distant Iapetus with it's two toned coloration, ridge of mountains, and Saturn in the background. The monolith might as well be on this thing.


Of small things, Phoebe is a relic centaur captured by Saturn, Helene looks like a cropped image of the top of a glacier, and Methone looks like an egg.

This addon contains:
16K Saturn Rings
4K Outer Saturn Rings
2K Pan
4K Atlas
16K Epimetheus
8K Janus
2K Methone
8K Mimas
16K Enceladus
8K Enceladus normalmap
16K Tethys
4K Calypso
16K Dione
2K Helene
16K Rhea
16K Iapetus
16K Iapetus normalmap
4K Phoebe

In addition, there are several dozen alternate textures.

CLICK HERE TO ENHANCE YOUR SATURN SYSTEM EXPERIENCE!!!

Saturn Rings.png
Saturn Rings with Pandora shepherding the F Ring
Last edited by Shadow-Dragon-777 on 09.12.2024, 06:19, edited 4 times in total.

Avatar
trappistplanets
Posts: 639
Joined: 11.06.2020
Age: 17
With us: 4 years 6 months

Post #2by trappistplanets » 07.03.2022, 11:58

where are the other icy minors (you could use my maps for them unless you want maps to be made from real eggheads)
There is a limit to how far we can travel into the stars.
Owner of "The Grand Voyage" addon series
Collaborating with Dangerous_safety for the still developing Cer system

Avatar
Topic author
Shadow-Dragon-777
Posts: 80
Joined: 03.11.2021
Age: 30
With us: 3 years 1 month
Location: A Galaxy Far Far Away....

Post #3by Shadow-Dragon-777 » 07.03.2022, 12:09

They don't have findable maps made by scientists. The scientists who analyze the data, make shape models, and map them. Egghead data is the best data for accuracy.

Avatar
trappistplanets
Posts: 639
Joined: 11.06.2020
Age: 17
With us: 4 years 6 months

Post #4by trappistplanets » 07.03.2022, 13:16

Shadow-Dragon-777 wrote:They don't have findable maps made by scientists. The scientists who analyze the data, make shape models, and map them. Egghead data is the best data for accuracy.
so your going to leave them blank?

Added after 6 minutes 28 seconds:
Shadow-Dragon-777 wrote:They don't have findable maps made by scientists. The scientists who analyze the data, make shape models, and map them. Egghead data is the best data for accuracy.
stook does have a epimetheus map from voyager data
Epimetheus Stooke.jpg


there is this janus map (not sure if stooke or somebody else made it, but its just voyager data
janusmap.jpg


it really annoys me no maps of these worlds were made from cassini data, hence why i made my maps (reprojected using thomas 2018 meshes and blender)

Added after 1 minute 43 seconds:
also, i thought there was a hyperion map
found this one from voyager(?) data https://solarviews.com/cap/sat/hyperionmap.htm
i am pretty sure JohnVV made one from cassini data
There is a limit to how far we can travel into the stars.
Owner of "The Grand Voyage" addon series
Collaborating with Dangerous_safety for the still developing Cer system

Avatar
Topic author
Shadow-Dragon-777
Posts: 80
Joined: 03.11.2021
Age: 30
With us: 3 years 1 month
Location: A Galaxy Far Far Away....

Post #5by Shadow-Dragon-777 » 07.03.2022, 14:48

The Phil Stooke voyager maps are already in the vanilla Celestia install.

Avatar
trappistplanets
Posts: 639
Joined: 11.06.2020
Age: 17
With us: 4 years 6 months

Post #6by trappistplanets » 07.03.2022, 15:56

Shadow-Dragon-777 wrote:The Phil Stooke voyager maps are already in the vanilla Celestia install.
they need better maps, like seriously, after many years there are no cassini maps of these moons, only ones that i know of are some stooke maps (but there voyager) and my maps (in the case for helene and methone, there are egghead maps)
There is a limit to how far we can travel into the stars.
Owner of "The Grand Voyage" addon series
Collaborating with Dangerous_safety for the still developing Cer system

Avatar
Topic author
Shadow-Dragon-777
Posts: 80
Joined: 03.11.2021
Age: 30
With us: 3 years 1 month
Location: A Galaxy Far Far Away....

Post #7by Shadow-Dragon-777 » 14.08.2022, 20:40

Updated the addon with brightness corrected textures, imagery for Janus and Prometheus, a plethora of alternate textures, and a normal map for Iapetus.

Avatar
Topic author
Shadow-Dragon-777
Posts: 80
Joined: 03.11.2021
Age: 30
With us: 3 years 1 month
Location: A Galaxy Far Far Away....

Post #8by Shadow-Dragon-777 » 09.12.2024, 06:18

Major update to this addon
EXPANDED RINGS!!!
Saturn's outer rings are now displayed. Witness the majesty of the G and E rings!!! Turn up the brightness to reveal the Janus/Epimetheus ring and Pallene rings... turn it up to 11 and you may even catch the Anthe and Methone rings too! Watch these smaller moons, Aegaeon, and Enceladus dancing amid their respective created rings!!! (unfortunately there is clipping of the E ring through Enceladus... it was either that or creating a gap that doesn't exist where Enceladus is.
Saturn Rings expanded.png
The E and G rings are faintly visible at lower brightness settings.

MOONS WITH FACELIFTS!!!
Finally some Cassini data on several moons!!!
Pan, Atlas, Epimetheus, Janus, and Calypso now have Cassini data! Helene has a better map too.
Epimetheus.png
Epimetheus now mapped in detail!!!

BUMPS ON OUR FAVORITE GEYSER!!!
New texture and normal maps have been added to Enceladus!!!
Enceladus normal.png
Enceladus pops out now with a new hires normal map!

Finally I added a couple alternate maps for the moons and updated placenames for Rhea.


Return to “Textures”