Dione from approx. 1.200.000 Km

A gorgeous Dione poses for Cassini, with shadowed craters and bright, wispy streaks first observed by the Voyager spacecraft 24 years ago. The wispy areas will be imaged at higher resolution in mid-December 2004. Subtle variations in brightness across the surface of this moon are visible here as well. Dione's diameter is 1.118 Km. The image shows primarily the trailing hemisphere of Dione, which is the side opposite the moon's direction of motion in its orbit. The image has been rotated so that north is up.
The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft narrow angle camera on Oct. 27, 2004, at a distance of about 1.2 MKMs from Dione and at a Sun-Dione-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 28°. The image scale is 3.5 Km per pixel.