It's time to present my latest Celestia textures, first Epimetheus with 1k surface map and 0,5k topography map.
The image in the middle was acquired by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on November 11, 1980. In this image, Saturn's F-ring casts a shadow across Epimetheus' surface. If you look carefully on Celestia's Saturn rings you will see that the F-ring is missed. After an intesive search on the web I came to the result to build as precise as posible my own Saturn rings. It seems that no one did this before. With my 8k (4k in Celestia) Saturn rings it was now possible to simulate the situation with the F-ring shadow. I know that Celestia can't render shadows on a 3ds model but I want see how exact does Celestia this job. Here is the shot seening the situation from the Sun. The shot was made short time after Epimetheus has left Saturn's shadow.
The next shot shows the same situaion but from behind.
Now the F-ring can't cast a shadow on Epimetheus in Celestia. It seems that the orbit of Epimetheus should be improved. But I'm not an expert in this dings and so I hope that someone can do that.
Finally some shot of the new Saturn rings.
The Saturn map is 1k and a bit new colored. Here is a Hubble picture of a similar scene. http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA03162
An overview of all vissible rings. You can see the F-ring (very thin), A-ring with Keeler and Encke gap, Cassini div., B and the dark C-ring.
The f-ring and the outer A-ring with Encke gap and Pan and the small Keeler gap.
Prometheus between A-Ring with Keeler gap and F-ring.
The dark C-ring and the inner B-ring.
The rings from behind, seeing the Sun through it.
It would be nice if Celestia gets an 'view option' for high polygon rings and a 2k shadow texture.
All textures can be found on my website.
The Hyperion maps are also updated. The surface map based now on a map from Phil Stooke.
Bye Jens
