I spent last weekend in Middle Earth. More correctly, I spent the weekend watching the extended DVD editions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy of movies, something I’ve been wanting to do since I got the set for Christmas. Great movies, lots of action and beautiful scenery and incredible CG work on the battle scenes. I was in hog heaven.

Today I got to check out another Lord of the Rings—the great and beauteous planet Saturn. Thanks to Hubble Space Telescope, it’s now a movie star. Today the Space Telescope Science Institute released its own set of movies about Saturn, all based on images taken by HST over the past few years. They show ring plane crossing, some of the Moons, and some atmospheric features as the planet spins on its axis.

Astronomers took dozens of images of Saturn over the years, using the Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys. These images were strung together and animated to give us these three wonderful videos.

The best part about this ongoing survey of Saturn is that it shows us the planet changing over time, at least in the atmosphere. It gives us all a chance to see Saturn’s rings in different orientations as it (and we) orbit the Sun and our changing positions change our point of view. Go check ’em out and collect the set!