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J. E. Richardson, R. D. Lorenz, A. McEwen (Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona)
We present an analysis of images of Saturn's moon Titan, obtained by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on November 8-12, 1980. Orange filter (590-640 nm) images were photometrically corrected and a longitudinal average subtracted from them, leaving residual images with up to 5% contrast, and dominated by surface reflectivity contributions. The resultant map shows the same regions (including the Huygens probe landing site) observed at 673 nm by the Hubble Space Telescope. The Voyager 1 data has an intrinsically higher spatial resolution by around an order of magnitude, but at lower signal-to-noise ratios. Many of the same albedo features are present in both datasets; an apparent longitudinal offset places tight constraints on Titan's rotation, which appears slightly subsynchronous at 15.946 ±0.002 days, although the influence of navigational and photometric uncertainties on this value are still being investigated. The detectability of the surface at such short wavelengths puts constraints on the optical depth, which may be overestimated by some fractal models.
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