64 Scenes from the Saturnian system – a tribute to Sir Paul McCartney

As British musician Sir Paul McCartney was celebrating his 64th birthday on 18 June 2006, the Cassini Imaging Team, responsible for both cameras on the orbiter, released a collage of 64 fascinating images of the Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) experiment, in reference to the Beatles’ 1967 song.

The images and a music video containing an animation of this colourful kaleidoscope were sent to the famous pop star. The 64 images were selected and assembled by Professor Carolyn Porco, Principal Investigator of the Cassini camera experiment, and her staff at CICLOPS (Cassini Imaging Central Laboratory for Observations) at the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado.

The film, which is set to music, can be downloaded from the CICLOPS web portal (see the top of the right-hand column of the homepage): http://ciclops.org

You can also find detailed descriptions there of the phenomena that can be seen in the different images of Saturn, its rings, and the icy moons. Moreover, on the CICLOPS website you can also view the raw ISS images of the Cassini mission.

Credit: The Cassini Imaging Team and NASA/JPL/SSI; Compilation: Diamond Sky Productions.