The Cassini Saturn orbiter first spotted lakes in Titan's northern polar region using its radar instrument very early in the mission. The lakes were initially invisible to Cassini's optical instruments, because when Cassini arrived it was winter at the north pole, so no sunlight ever reached them. Over its long, long mission Cassini has seen Saturn and Titan go through equinox, and now they are approaching northern summer solstice. That keeps the lake district in the sunlight for most of the Titan day, and also gives sunlight a shorter path through Titan's smoggy atmosphere to the north pole, making images clearer. Recently, image processing enthusiast Ian Regan has been working with Cassini photos, developing his own recipe for processing the fuzzy raw frames into crisp, colorful views.

Here you can see Ian's efforts develop: