Saturn, dark spot. Jan 14th 2015

[Quark (Trevor)]

Imaged Saturn this morning and have resolved a rather interesting dark spot in IR.

Obviously Saturn is rather low at the moment so the seeing was not great but it will rise quite rapidly over the coming weeks. I measure the spot to be at Lat +30.4 L3 17.2

Note that I have included an inset of the spot that has been more heavily sharpened.

I have also uploaded a polar projection of this IR data and the dark spot is also seen in the polar projection.

I had a look at the most recent 500 raw data sets from Cassini but the most recent runs have mainly been of Titan. There are a couple of Saturn images but none with this dark spot.

Regards
Trevor

[ags_ (Phil)]

Very interesting and a top capture Trevor, is this related to the spot last year? I have tried Saturn this year but so far no usable data. Looks like it will be an interesting planetary season.
Regards, Phil.

[Quark (Trevor)]

Originally Posted by ags_

Very interesting and a top capture Trevor, is this related to the spot last year? I have tried Saturn this year but so far no usable data. Looks like it will be an interesting planetary season.
Regards, Phil.

Thanks Phil, no, this spot is a fair bit closer to the equator. My final measurement for the anticyclone fossil of The Great Storm was from Oct 1st 2014 at lat +42.7 I very much look forward to reacquiring that feature again in 2015.

[Quark (Trevor)]

Originally Posted by ags_

Very interesting and a top capture Trevor, is this related to the spot last year? I have tried Saturn this year but so far no usable data. Looks like it will be an interesting planetary season.
Regards, Phil.

Phil, have put together a side by side data set of polar projections.
One provided my final data point for the anticyclone from 2014 for our drift chart. It was from Oct 1st 2014 and note that I have indicted the anticyclone with a couple of arrows. For comparison I have this latest polar projection from Jan 14th 2015 and have indicated the dark feature mentioned in this current thread.

Also note the changes in contrast between the hexagon and the band of material immediately surrounding it. Since I started working on the hex rotation rate, measuring the vertices, back in 2012 there have been quite marked changes in the contrast between the hex and the banding to the South of it. I think these relate to seasonal changes as Saturn moves toward summer for the Northern Hemisphere.

[astronobob (Bob)]

Interesting !

[Asso (Brett)]

It is a very interesting find Trevor it does look like a huge storm of some kind on Saturn.
Good work.

[Sebbie (Sebastian)]

Great discovery Trevor, looking forward to Saturn in June!

Rgds, Sebastian

[Quark (Trevor)]

Originally Posted by Sebbie

Great discovery Trevor, looking forward to Saturn in June!

Rgds, Sebastian

Thanks Sebbie, at opposition on May 23rd it climbs to 76 degrees alt for my observatory at about midnight.

Originally Posted by Asso

It is a very interesting find Trevor it does look like a huge storm of some kind on Saturn.
Good work.

Thanks Brett, here in OZ we really do have a front row seat for Saturn over the coming several years so we should be able to eek out and track any new feature that does form.

Originally Posted by astronobob

Interesting !

Thanks Bob.