Saturn 26th vgood seeing

[suma126 (Shane)]

nice and sharp john.

[Paul Haese]

Brian Combs has also imaged this. See link below

http://www.bcastropics.com/img/galle...tion1_full.gif

Certainly not dust motes.

[SkyViking (Rolf)]

I'm convinced the spokes are real. They are usually very large features and easily visible in the space probe images, so no real reason why they can't be spotted from Earth? Stephen O'Meara claimed to have seen them visually in the 70's, before the Voyager images.
However, they are also very transient so in order to actually see them it is probably essential to be lucky enough to capture at the right time and to also make an animation.
I too recall noticing something similar in Trevor's images, but I think there were fewer frames so I didn't think more of it. Seeing John's animation now absolutely convinces me however.

Since there is still much debate over what causes the spokes (electrical fields etc) I can't help to think that they may be associated with the large storm currently raging on Saturn...?

[Frewi808 (Freddy)]

Soooooooooooo Beautifull John !!!!!!!
Just an amazing video !
Freddy

[asimov (John)]

Certainly better seeing than what I received on the same night. Well done John!

Spokes? I thought that was old news. There has been numerous discussions on this topic in CN a month ago.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Wow great results Johnny

The spokes certainly look real to me and do appear to be moving around the ring and not across it at least.

Look forward to hearing about the investigation

Great stuff

Re Enkes division, the gap seems to be very wide and like a stretched triangle, is it the far outer edge of the stretched triangle that is being considered the Enkes division? In other images I have seen that show it well it is a distinct single thin line...?

Mike

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Top detail, such great vision of the ring details including the lumpy bits.

[Quark (Trevor)]

Hi John, some more info for your interest regarding spokes within Saturns rings.

As Asimov has already mentioned this was a topic that recieved a fair bit of coverage on CN over the last couple of months.

I have been checking back through the CN forum and have put together a bit of a chronology of this matter. If you check the posts on CN that I will list below you will find animations that show what may be spokes within the ring system that are rotating with it.

Dec 23rd 2010, Freddy Willem posted a set of Saturn RGB images that Emil Kraaikamp put into an animation and posted within Freddy's thread, several people commented that they could see spoke structure in the animation.

Dec 26th 2010 I posted an animation on CN, my avatar is Kecktastic, Freddy commented that he could see spoke structure within the animation.

Dec 31 2010 Wayne Jaeschke posted a very hi res animation on CN that clearly showed spoke structure in the rings.

Jan 3rd 2011 Emil Kraaikamp avatar MvZ posted a hi res animation showing spoke structure within the rings on CN.

Jan 15th 2011 Brian Coombes posted a hi res animation showing spoke structure on CN

Jan 15 2011 Freddy Willem posted an animation showing the same spoke structure that appeared in Brian Coombes animation on the same date, Reckon that really does support the case that these are real and are spokes.

Jan 24th 2011 Brian Coombes posted an animation showing spoke structure within the rings.

Jan 24th I (Kecktastic) also posted an animation on CN that others thought showed spoke structure within the rings.


Some of the animations listed above are very hi res and definitly show structure within the rings. I must add that initially back in December I doubted that it was spoke structure but I have become a believer.

Some very pertinent facts to consider here relate to the fundamental cause of the spokes. As I understand it there is no broad consensus on this, however, if it is caused by electro magnet forces then it is most pertinent that at the time these "spokes" have been detected in amateur animations has coincided with the biggest, brightest, most intense electrical storm ever recorded on Saturn.

Thought this may have been of interest
Regards
Trevor

[John Hothersall]

Thank guys for your opinions on the ring patches, they cannot be dust motes as the Flea3 has a glass window about 5mm above sensor surface making small motes impossible, I did think it may be noise from processing but they are on one side only. Avi with 20min separation would have been clearer with movement so will do next time.

Enke could also be a processing result rather than actual feature picked up, I need to restack but not had the time as its the fifth clear night in a row so cannot complain, seeing last night was a let down but will give it a go tonight.

I made a gif from night before with good seeing showing hint of spoke shadows.

http://stargazerslounge.com/attachme...mation-gif.gif

Thanks again guys. John.

[asimov (John)]

Looks good for the Brisbane area. I won't be bothering however. Good luck!

[iceman (Mike)]

Well I'm pleased to know that I'm wrong! It's obviously been a while since I've looked in detail at Saturn images.. Trevor's list above shows many examples of it in the last couple of months.

Fantastic! I never thought they would be high contrast enough to be picked up from Earth!

Excellent work John!

[Lester]

Amazing detail John, thanks for the views. All the best for more.

[Screwdriverone (Chris)]

Hi All,

In the Wiki article is the following line : "although it has been suggested that the electrical disturbances might be caused by either lightning bolts in Saturn's atmosphere"

From the orientation and placement of the Spokes, it appears that they are in synchronisation with the storms that are rotating with the Planet....?

Perhaps Saturn's Magnetosphere is being disrupted by the storms and is causing toroidal disturbances in the ring systems to cause these spokes similar to the tidal spots on Jupiter that form with the interaction with Io?

I may have some of the theory wrong.

These are sensational images John and something of which to be to be very proud.

Well done.

Cheers

Chris

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Excellent images John! and I like the idea that they are related to lightning as well...

cheers, Bird

[icytailmark (Mark)]

it certainly does look like chunks of ice in the ring on the left hand side look in each frame the specks are moving along the ring.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Great shots John

Guys...there's a problem with the dust mote theory. Watch the second, slower animation. If they were dust motes, no matter what you tried to do, they wouldn't move as you took a series of shots, they would stay roughly in the same place as you ran the animation.

Watch the darkest of the "patches" in the animation. You can see aspect changes in the shape of the spot which are indicative of something rotating into and out of view. It would've been made easier if John had've taken more subs to smooth the rotation of the spot out more, but it is pretty clear that whatever was imaged there is not a dust mote but is rotating fairly synchronously with the body of the planet. Since the spokes and other phenomena of the rings has possibly to do with the influence of the magnetic field of the planet on the particles, as well as the presence of shepherding objects within the rings themselves, it seems most likely that the phenomena we see here is local to the rings, and due to those influences.

[Paul Haese]

It's been confirmed by Dr John Rogers of JUPOS that these are indeed spokes. He suggests that the storms are something altogether different. The spokes are most likely a magnetic resonance feature. Strangely only seen around the time of the equinox.

John I would suggest you submit this to space weather too for a feature on the front page. Not many images have been produced with this sort of clarity.

[renormalised (Carl)]

You know what would be really interesting to find out, and that's how often the spokes have been imaged from Earth without people realising that they had taken piccies of them...and how far back in the past they have been imaged.

What a pity amateurs don't have ready access to sites of very clear and steady skies so that they can image and study these things more often.

[mswhin63 (Malcolm)]

Originally Posted by Paul Haese

It's been confirmed by Dr John Rogers of JUPOS that these are indeed spokes. He suggests that the storms are something altogether different. The spokes are most likely a magnetic resonance feature. Strangely only seen around the time of the equinox.

John I would suggest you submit this to space weather too for a feature on the front page. Not many images have been produced with this sort of clarity.

Definitely submit it even to APOD. I am watching lectures from one of the co-ordinator's. A lot of the images are used in scientific studies and watched very closely.

[samilag (Giuseppe)]

John congratulation thanks for these pictures, astro-imagers are able to give also scientific supports with these kind of spectacular details.

Giuseppe