Hi all,

there is some most interesting news concerning a new quality class of Hubble-based imaging of Pluto by Marc Buie and his collaborators. Here are the two very recent IOP scientific publications:

http://hubblesite.org/pubinfo/pdf/2010/06/pdf1.pdf
http://hubblesite.org/pubinfo/pdf/2010/06/pdf2.pdf

with the second one being most interesting for most of you, I suppose.

I am currently in correspondence with Marc B.. He first of all gave me his permission to include his new textures into forthcoming Celestia/Celestia.Sci distributions! Also, he pointed his new dedicated Web page out to me, where you may find some respective simple cylindrical maps of Pluto and Charon, partly with some slightly artistic surface structures added as explained on his new WEB page:

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~buie/pluto/maptoys.html

What is a bit tricky is the Pluto coordinate system, he uses. With his explanations, I am quite sure that I got it right. I prepared some comparison images for 3 representative eastern longitudes of 90, 180 and 270 degrees.

(Click for BIG}



and for comparison the gallery images from NASA (HubbleSite)
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archiv ... 6/image/i/

(Click for Big)


Here is another nice view in 2015 (New Horizons flyby!) with both Pluto and Charon meeting closely




I have also compared with the earlier, official Celestia texture that I made quite a while ago , based on photometric data by Marc Buie et al., gathered during six years of mutual occultations of Pluto and Charon. The agreement is quite OK, after proper alignment of the textures.

Fridger

Can one ask when the Celestia.Sci project will become operational?
Sorry, but you now have me looking forward to this event with great anticipation.

Thanks, as always, Brain-Dead

Bob,

sorry, no definite schedule, yet, since I am just working by myself and don't want to renounce to the many other pleasures of life . But when I feel I am satisfied with what I have, I'll release without delay.

Very soon, there will be a detailed preview/"white paper" here, about the considerable improvements I achieved (with lots of new code) for the rendering of galaxy colors and notably, an almost "photo-realistic" appearance of elliptical and lenticular galaxies that make up for exactly 50% of my large galaxy data base.

Cheers,
Fridger

Okay, I understand, and I hope I live long enough to see the improvements.
As always, best wishes...

Thanks, Brain-Dead

Working hard! Thanks!

Fridger