Is this Saturn photo real or an artist's rendition?

[larry909]

It's hard to beleive, it looks so uniform and like it was drawn.

https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/system/resources/detail_files/7547_PIA20506_full.jpg

Webpage of photo: https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/resources/7547/?category=images

 

[Delta2]

My guess is that probably there is some sort of digital post processing of the photo but I might be wrong and it could be the raw image, I don't have big experience on astronomical photos.

 

[Al_]

Looks genuine to me!
It looks like it was taken from a space probe, not an Earth telescope.
It has well defined stripes and if you zoom in it's grainy, as you would expect.

 

[glappkaeft]

From your own link:
"The image was taken in visible light with the Cassini spacecraft wide-angle camera on Sept. 24, 2016."

 

[davenn]

It's hard to beleive, it looks so uniform and like it was drawn.

as the last two posters said ... it's real

It looks like it was taken from a space probe, not an Earth telescope.

it does say that

 

[larry909]

Yea it just looks so unreal [emoji50]

 

[davenn]

Yea it just looks so unreal [emoji50]

the universe is an amazing place with many wonders to behold

 

[sophiecentaur]

Yea it just looks so unreal [emoji50]

I believe it's pretty common to add 'sharpening' to such pictures. That could account for the apparent extra resolution. Excessive sharpening of very common on the images (ordinary photos) in newspapers and magazines, to make up for the limited resolution of cheaper printing. It's something that can be done on pictures before they are reduced to JPEG, which can give some horrible effects.

 

[Drakkith]

My guess is that probably there is some sort of digital post processing of the photo but I might be wrong and it could be the raw image, I don't have big experience on astronomical photos.

That's definitely not a raw image. It's almost certainly had various image processing techniques (like dark frame subtraction) applied and the contrast and brightness has been changed to make all the details visible. It may have even been made by a composition of multiple images. Space telescopes and probes operate in very adverse conditions, with cosmic rays and other particles frequently impacting the sensor. Using multiple images allows you to filter out the noise generated by these events without losing the details of the object.

 

[sophiecentaur]

That's definitely not a raw image.

Yes but you could regard it as a way of presenting relevant information whilst reducing spurious effects. The same could be said of more or less any astronomical picture that's published. The blurred thing they started off with wouldn't appeal to anyone. Perhaps a health warning should be required for such images. They can be a source of deep disappointment for newbie astronomers who think that the pictures on the adverts for the scope they just bought were what they could expect to see with it.