Abstract: An apparatus includes a magnetic resonance scanner configured to apply a navigation pulse exciting a navigation region, and a saturation or inversion pulse saturating or inverting a region of interest but not saturating or inverting a portion or all of the navigation region, and to read navigation magnetic resonance data excited by the navigation pulse and informational magnetic resonance data in the saturated or inverted region of interest. A processor is configured to process the informational magnetic resonance data based at least in part on the navigation magnetic resonance data. The apparatus is suitable for performing an imaging method including: saturating or inverting an imaging region while leaving a navigation region unsaturated or non-inverted; generating navigation data from the navigation region; generating saturation or inversion recovery data from the imaging region; and creating a T1 map from the saturation or inversion recovery data.