Jupiter and Saturn 22nd June, softer processing

[andyc (Andy)]

Pretty decent night of seeing on Thursday, despite a raging jetstream over Sydney. The preview on Firecapture was as good as the processed images of a terrible night when Ganymede was transiting last week! Processing and capture learning is progressing too.

Jupiter: 18 minutes of 1 minute stacks, best 50% of 5600 frames/min derotated, 200mm f/5 Newtonian, ASI185MC. The light/dark collar around the GRS seems to be losing definition, more uniformly brown material in that area just now.

Saturn: 14 minutes of 1-minute stacks, best 50% of 2800 frames/min. Poalr hexagon is there, and happy to see Encke about as well as I've yet managed, was in many of the subs.

For fun, I found my first ever planetary images, from 17 years ago, in December 2000 - taken on a 200mm f/6 Dobsonian, with an early digital camera (Canon Powershot S20), and eyepiece projection, single frames. I remember being very happy with them once upon a time!

Seeing forecasts are still something of a mystery even though I monitor weather in my day job - sometimes the jetstream kills seeing, and sometimes not, and Skippy Sky doesn't seem to take the jetstream that much into account (was 8/9 seeing rating for both the 18th and 22nd).

[astronobob (Bob)]

Master at work there Andy - well done, all three looking very fine indeed, a little improvement over the years is a good thing hey,
Yep, that Jet is hanging about again, possible break in it next weekend, but too far ahead to be certain ?
Ahhh the sky conditions, more too it than meets the eye