Saturn

[Solar (Ralph Smith)]

Saturn 2019 07 06 12" Meade and ZWO 290MC. Good seeing.

[Saturnine (Jeff)]

With so much interest in Jupiter lately it is good to see some Saturn for a change, nice crisp image with the Encke Gap captured too.

[gb44 (Glenn)]

An inspirational & great Saturn!

Ralph, how did you do it? I have a ZWo178MC so I would like to get there one day. Firecapture, frame rate, gain, ms? etc. would be good if possible.

TIA
GlennB

[Solar (Ralph Smith)]

Originally Posted by gb44

An inspirational & great Saturn!

Ralph, how did you do it? I have a ZWo178MC so I would like to get there one day. Firecapture, frame rate, gain, ms? etc. would be good if possible.

TIA
GlennB

Hi Glenn,
Thank you, I am still learning. The seeing was good, not perfect by any means but pretty good. The data was collected half an hour before midnight, so very high up. I try most nights and am getting a feel for conditions. I probably delete 500GB of data every session. This helps me get a handle on what I can get out of a session and what I can't.
I will help in any way I can.

Meade 12" and ZWO 290MC. FL5600. FireCapture exp. of 10.48ms and gain was about 350 I think giving a Frame rate of about 73fps, for a Histogram of 80%, captured as an AVI. Further processing in AutoStakkert 3, best 40% stacked, wavelets in Regi6, default setting and row 2 only, and RGB Balance, then PS CS6 for finale sharpening and De-Noise, and small Hue/Sat adjustment.

[Solar (Ralph Smith)]

Originally Posted by Saturnine

With so much interest in Jupiter lately it is good to see some Saturn for a change, nice crisp image with the Encke Gap captured too.

Thanks, it has taken three years of trial and error but I am slowly getting there.

[Aussie_Dave]

Well done Ralph, that's a solid Saturn image there and good on you for persisting.

Saturn opposition is I think tomorrow night, the 10th and we may get some more reflection off the rings for a couple of hours. Will need to check exact times for that.

[gb44 (Glenn)]

Thanks Ralph
And what sort of frame count / length of video? How many frames in the stack?
What 2x barlow have you used?
I havent had a night where I could use my barlow over the past month or so.

TIA
GlennB

[Solar (Ralph Smith)]

Originally Posted by gb44

Thanks Ralph
And what sort of frame count / length of video? How many frames in the stack?
What 2x barlow have you used?
I havent had a night where I could use my barlow over the past month or so.

TIA
GlennB

Hi Glen,
I have used a 2x barlow modified to fit the imaging train to give me a resolution of 0.11 arc"/pixel. FPS 73. Think around 10000 frames each set of 120 seconds and I captured 15 sets. I only used the best 10 of those to process in AS3.