Saturn ASI120mm first crack!

[JB80]

I finally gave my ASI120mm it's first planetary light last night and I must say I'm continued to be very impressed with the results it is giving. These are easily my best Saturn images to date and there is detail there that I have not seen in my images before, you can faintly see a small storm and the contrast between areas is well defined although it may be a tad presumptuous to say the hex is clear.
Seeing was pretty good too but there was an ever so slight breeze which did bounce the image around just a little bit, but it was still 24°C after midnight so it was a lovely session and with the milky way slowly rising I think it might be time to crack out the dslr and polarie too.

I will be ordering a filter wheel and some filters this weekend too, that seems to be a priority.
If the shots continue like this I think it will be worth mastering processing a bit more as all I have done is a basic stack in AS!2 and wavelets in Regi. What more could be done?
Will winjupos improve it any more?

The other thing is the frame rates of the camera using firecapture, my first unbarlowed effort I was getting around 60fps which sounds about right and I know as you up the exposure it slows down but using the x2 I got 27fps and x3 14fps, can I make it record any faster?
I had already used the ROI and upped the gain to get those values and if I'm honest I'd rather not use the gain so high but if it can't be helped then fair enough.

Any tips would be greatly appreciated. :)

All images were taken with a Skywatcher 6" f/8 newt and ASI120mm. The larger pic was with a Tal x3 barlow.

[Matt Wastell]

Congratulations on a PB - looks great & I believe all the things you see are visible in the image!

[JB80]

Thanks Matt, I'm quite happy with it. Hopefully more to come.

[Camelopardalis]

Looking good Jarrod! You might be able to eek a little more sharpness out with the wavelets in Registax, at the expense of a little noise.

Regarding the frame rates...reduce the exposure time to get good frame rates again and then adjust the gain so that the shape of Saturn is just discernible over the black background...sounds crazy? Experiment and see what happens :D extra noise you might gain from the lower gain is compensated by the higher number of higher quality frames. At least that's my theory :lol: I have the colour version of the QHY5L-ii and to be honest I've not captured a Saturn I'm really thrilled with at f/25 but as you've got the mono you'll no doubt get better results because of the QE differences.

Look forward to your results once you've got the filter wheel going too :thumbsup:

[JB80]

Thanks Dunk.

I do need to find a good planetary work flow. Been reading a lot but I'm not certain how applicable some of it might be. Experiment and see what works as you say. :D

I will give a lower exposure a try, I do try to underexpose a bit but not as drastic as you said so I will give it a go, it's about the only thing left to try now to get a higher frame rate anyway.
Just need the sky to play ball now.