Ambient light on Titan

[nimbus]

A while back I asked and tried to gather enough clues to figure out what ambient light was like on Titan's surface. No one really knew.
http://www.arcadiastreet.com/cgvistas/s ... .htm#Titan

 

[James_Bull]

Yeah it's a good question actually! Nice picture. As I recall the general answer was something like 1,000 times dimmer than a summer day on earth, but 100 times brighter than a full moon night. Confusling but this picture, if accurate, clear it up! Thanks.

 

[a_lost_packet_]

A while back I asked and tried to gather enough clues to figure out what ambient light was like on Titan's surface. No one really knew.
http://www.arcadiastreet.com/cgvistas/s ... .htm#Titan

Sweet.

Do you know what renderer was used? I couldn't find any info on the site regarding that. Very nice images though.

 

[3488]

I agree 100% with you A-L-P. Excellent rendition of a potential future crewed mission to Titan.

Also great topic nimbus, thank you for starting this thread.

Well, let's see. Saturn orbits the Sun at approx 9.58 AU, so 9.58 x 9.58 = 91.78. So therefore Titan of course orbiting Saturn receives approx 1/92th the amount of sunlight Earth does assuming clear skies.

Solar constant at Earth & Moon approx 1,320 watts per square metre (sun at Zenith). So at Titan 1,320 / 91.78 = 14.38 watts per square metre, once again assuming clear skies, wth the Sun at zenith, like Enceladus or Dione for instance.

Given the haze & clouds it is pretty dark even during the day.

The surface images returned by Huygens were from cameras deliberately designed for very low lighting levels, so the image below from Huygens in Shangri-La on Titan, near the centre of the hemisphere of Titan that permanently faces away from Saturn is very much brighter than a human being would see. Not to metion it was minus 180 Celsius / 93 Kelvin.

Below is the same view but darkened by me to only 1.09% as bright (contrast is unaltered though), actual lighting on Titan assuming 9.58 AU from the Sun.

Andrew Brown.

 

[High_Evolutionary]

If titan is this dark the majority of the time, how can this article back in Dec 2009 be possible? It is possible that I may have missed something, but http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0 ... -lake.html

 

[SpeedFreek]

From that article:

Though Titan's surface is usually shrouded from view by the moon's thick, hazy atmosphere, infrared light is able to pass through, which is how Cassini saw the glint.

 

[brandbll]

Very cool what you've done with those pictures Andrew, gives a very interesting perspective to them. I haven't ever noticed that dot in the upper right of that picture, do you have an explanation for what that is?

 

[High_Evolutionary]

@Speedfreak, Thankyou for clearing that up. In my haste I forgot to reread the article. Still one my favorite moons!

 

[kk434]

Please! Write to your congressman to find funds for another Titan lander. A nice pic of the lakes might just kickstart intrest in space exploration. Right now i dont see any missions to Titan before 2040 and that's very bad.

 

[JonClarke]

1/1000 midday on Earth is the light level we experience in a typical lounge room during the day without artificial light, or what we see out doors a few minutes after sunset. Quite bright really, certain enough to see things clearly without lights.

 

[kg]

....Quite bright really, certain enough to see things clearly without lights.

I seem to recall something about the Huygens lander having exterior lighting. I think it was the same place that said the lander could float in liquid hydrocarbons if it should land in some. I think it was an older article in a magazine like sky and telescope or popular mechanics or such. Was this something Huygens used or was ever planned to have?

 

[3488]

Hi kg,

Below is an image from the downward looking aperture on the Huygens post landing. May tiny ice granules can be seen, along with the overexposed portion on the lower right, from Huygens lamp.

Hi Jon,

Very true, it would require some eye adaption for sure, but I think contrast may be an issue, so I think some form of lighting may still be needed. On one of Saturn's atmosphereless moons like Dione, contrast will be much better.

Andrew Brown.