04/12/05 Venus, Mars 05/12/05 Saturn

Well I setup to image the 3 day old moon for a series I'm doing
and the seeing was pretty crappy. Venus turned out to be a better
target albeit sitting a stones throw away. Later I finally had a chance
to tackle Mars then Saturn.

Seeing 7.5/10 Trans 6/10, there was a jetstream present overhead
which didn't helps things. And the odd lil bit of whispy cloud. Still, since
I haven't had a chance to get near anything for the last couple months
it was worth a go.

8" f/6 Newt, LPI

All images taken through a 3x barlow with the elements of a x2
barlow screwed onto the nose of the LPI, except the smaller Venus
shot which was taken using just the x3 barlow.

All had levels adjusted and a bit of sharpening in PS as well as
some RGB nudging.

And ending with day break with o'l Jup's again

regards,CS

[iceman (Mike)]

A marvellous series of shots Rob, they're all great! Well done.

Very crisp and nicely processed.

[matt]

Excellent stuff Rob.

Being a fellow 8" newt owner ... they're very inspirational and serve as something of a benchmark.

I agree with Mike on the processing. That's very nice work. Beautiful natural tones

[ving (David)]

grat looking shots there!
good to see jupiter coming up in he morning

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Nice looking images Rob. I also set up last night to try for Saturn, and found the worst seeing I've experienced in ages. Saturn was a blurry mess - you couldn't see the cassini division, that's how bad it was...so I'm glad you managed to get these images!

Bird

[Dennis]

Wow - fantastic portfolio of planetary images Rob. You sure had a busy and productive night. Lovely detail and marking on Mars and Saturn.

Cheers

Dennis

[RB (Andrew)]

Excellent collection there Rob, even the thumbnails look spectacular.

Well done mate.

Thanks Guy's for the postive feedback and comments, I really appreciated it

Matt, You will be surprise at what you 8" can pull off. Mine still gives me a
wow factor even after a couple of years. However am looking forward to
owning one of them GSO 16" Dob's when they come out.

Bird, Almost thought Saturn was a no goer too, but since I was getting
moments of great seeing. I waited until it got quite high.

Ving, Yup it's good to see o'l Jup's coming around again, one of my fav's

Thanks again guy's

regards,CS

[h0ughy (David)]

wow, I like Saturn!!! Excellent work ther Rob

[davidpretorius]

lovely,

do you have tracking, (please say yes or i will simply crumple into a small ball and cry)

Thanks Houghy!!

David, Me personally... only when there is a beer in my hand, I can track pretty
good from where ever I might be to the fridge and back. I have an EQ5 with duel
axis drives. Nothing special just the standard stepper moto's. Mine you there
thought there design was so good it didn't need any of that GPS & PEC training
yadda yadda, so no need to crumple into a small ball and cry lol


regards,CS

[asimov (John)]

Fine imaging Rob! You nailed mars & saturn, nice detail!