| 2010 StormE images analysis from 2010.04.25 to 2010.05.31 by M.Delcroix |
Storm has been detected for 4 months (as of this analysys) till first detection beginning of March. This third period going from end of April to end of May has seen after initial fading and elongation of the storm zone a new burst of activity (first detected on May 2nd by A.Wesley but really bright on May 5th image from C.Go) showed by a bright single spot called here StormE"2, preceded by the white remnant. The bright spot looked very soon separated in two equally bright parts StormE"1 and StormE"2 (see excellent resolved image from A.Wesley on May 10th), and preceded by a fainter spot StormE"3 (see images from C.Go on May 5th and May 9th), maybe formed from the previous white remnant. This might be the first time that a storm complex with 3 bright zones was imaged by amateurs. Then over the next 15 days, the storms gradually faded and separated, even the close E"1 and E"2 which were very close but on slightly different latitudes (E"1 almost 1° southern). On May 22nd, D.Peach image for the last time before next observation on June 2nd the storm complex elongate over 38° LIII (almost 35 000 km long). Longitudes of E''1 and E''2 are coherent with the ones of E1/E'1 and E2/E'2 observed in the previous period, showing that they could have come from the same sources even if this is not proven. Over this period, i did not find any image of this zone on Cassini's ISS images (which targeted Saturn only on April 29th/30th), while amateurs produced a good coverage. Thank you to all observers who provided the images. I will do a last analysis with images received in June and the last ones we are still getting from Australia (especially from Trevor Barry). Steady skies,[Marc Delcroix Tournefeuille,France]
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