With giant Saturn hanging in the blackness and sheltering Cassini from the sun's blinding glare, the [Cassini-Huygens] spacecraft viewed the rings as never before, revealing previously unknown faint rings and even glimpsing its home world.

This marvelous panoramic view was created by combining a total of 165 images taken by the Cassini wide-angle camera over nearly three hours on Sept. 15, 2006. The full mosaic consists of three rows of nine wide-angle camera footprints; only a portion of the full mosaic is shown here. Colour in the view was created by digitally compositing ultraviolet, infrared and clear filter images and was then adjusted to resemble natural colour.

The mosaic images were acquired as the spacecraft drifted in the darkness of Saturn's shadow for about 12 hours, allowing a multitude of unique observations of the microscopic particles that compose Saturn's faint rings.

Thanks to A Thrilling Wonder!
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