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Bruce Murray Space Image Library

Dione and Saturn and an almost invisible ring

Dione and Saturn and an almost invisible ring
Dione and Saturn and an almost invisible ring An infrared-green-violet approximate true-color composite of Dione poised in front of Saturn on 12 December 2011. Cassini is almost precisely in the ring plane, so the rings are vanishingly thin. NASA / JPL-Caltech / SSI / Emily Lakdawalla

Original images: W1702383418_1 - W1702383473_1 - W1702383528_1

Processing for this image involved separately aligning the three images on Dione and on Saturn, and presenting the result in the positions the two bodies occupied in the infrared-filter image. Because the range from Cassini to Dione changed noticeably between the acquisition of the three images, resizing was also required for the Dione composite. Resizing was not required for Saturn.