Saturn Jan 20th 2013

[Quark]

Hi All,


Have just returned from holidays, cruising the lower Murray Lakes & Coorong estuary.


Was up at 4am local this morning, capturing Saturn data by 4:30am in variable seeing. Have attached 1 RGB & 742nm IR data set. The IR was captured with Saturn at an alt of 44 degrees and is 2 consecutive data sets derotated, it would have been 3 data sets but for my computer deciding it wanted to install some windows updates and do a restart just as I was about to capture the 3rd IR data set.

The RGB, which is over 17 min's and derotated, was at an alt of 53 degrees.

The seeing was rather ordinary overall but did have some better moments, for sure the higher alt helped considerably. The storm remnant still remains reasonably well defined as is the Nth polar storm. The heat wave we have been experiencing in the OZ outback is no doubt contributing to the variable seeing at the moment.

Thanks for looking

Regards
Trevor

[Saturn%5]

Very nice Trevor :thumbsup:

[Larryp]

Good work , Trevor!

[Solar]

Nice going Trevor, love the colour shot.-outstanding :thumbsup:

[Quark]

Thanks Graeme, Laurie & Ralph, we have a great deal to look forward to with Saturn over the next decade.

Regards
Trevor

[asimov]

Nice, Trevor. Good seeing coming soon I hope.

[Shiraz]

lovely images Trevor. Interested to know if you derotated long AVIs or did you generate a number of short avis and derotate on combing the stacked images? regards Ray

[h0ughy]

very nice - certainly setting the bar for prospective solar system imagers

[Quark]

Thanks Asi, hope you are high and dry with all of this weather heading your way.

Thanks Ray, have been using 3 consecutive RGB data sets, each one as per my previous capture regime of 5 min's. This way I can still process the best of the individual RGB's, both as a comparison to the final combined result from the 3 individual data sets and also , for my own peace of mind, as a check that I am not losing any possible spoke structure within the rings due to differences in the rotational speed of particles within the rings & the atmosphere of the planet. As I am using a manual filter wheel and being an old geet set in his ways, I have this thing about always starting my R channel capture precisely on the half minute. This means that the mid point of my 5 min run, the centre of the G channel will always be bang on a full minute which is much easier to calculate the CMI, CMII & CMIII. Not having the reflex's of a cat and having to stand and rotate my filterwheel all the way on to "R" again to start the next RGB sequence and still starting that on a half minute means that I lose 1 minute between the R & G and G & B channels, thus my 3 consecutive RGB data sets are over 17 min's rather than 15 min's.

Thanks Dave, have had rather ordinary seeing thus but that will improve and with the higher alt I have very high expectations for this apparition.

[Shiraz]

thanks very much for the info Trevor. have tried derotation combining images from different AVIs of the same colour, but have not not yet had a result that was noticeably better than the best image that went in. regards Ray