Saturday morning Saturn

[Camelopardalis]

Folks,

Put the scope out on Friday night and the seeing was pretty rough in the early on, but after midnight I thought I'd give Mars and Saturn a look to see if it'd improved any. Looking nicely detailed through the eyepiece, I reached for the cam only to be stumped by the occasional wave of fluffies :sadeyes:

I did manage to get some captures inbetween though, and this is a stack of about 5 minutes of data. This is my first attempt at drizzling the data, so wasn't completely sure how it'd turn out :shrug:

Additional: I've added a couple of extra images...I was looking at the data to see if I could improve the contrast around the hexagon without having to sharpen too much, but it's fairly stubborn - maybe a better night needed :question: I've included the output from a single stack that is noisier but a little sharper. And by the slip of a mouse click, I also noticed a few Easter Eggs lurking there in the darkness :D (note: from the fringe of Brisbane CBD!)

Cheers,
Dunk

[John Hothersall]

That's a very fine result. Seeing did vary and settle sometimes.

John.

[Dennis]

Very nice. Love the detail in the structure of the rings and the natural looking processing.

Cheers

Dennis

[Camelopardalis]

Thanks John, Dennis!

It was a visual treat too luckily. Hopefully more stable nights will come our way.

[Astroman]

Nice work, nice resolution there.. what scope/camera combo was used?

[Camelopardalis]

Thanks Andrew!

Ah yeah I managed to omit that :lol:

C11 Edge HD with TV Powermate 2.5x and ZWO ASI224MC.

[Astroman]

Terrific... Nice combination of equipment, certainly does the job.

[astronobob]

Well that is certainly a pretty damn Neat Saturn image Dunk !

Ive just also reviewed your Juup capture back in January, both using the ZWO ASI224 Color CMOS - Pixel Size: 3.75um - ,, quite smaller than my 600D at 4.3um but your images are indeed impressive for a colour Camera !!

Would I be correct if stating the speed of FPS is what is at work here ? Freezing the seeing so to speak ?
The 600D is flat out doing 24fps but this Asi of yours in capable of :
150fps @ 10bit ADC full rez - ROI ect

Quite a lot of other factors tho, ie, bit depths, noise ect, the list gooes on ..

Im just introducing myself to this at the moment, but I do know when I extract the vid frames out of the dslr file - they come out as Jpgs, meaning only 8 Bit ? - must check what, if any other options there are when extracting these frames ect...

Sorry if this is too much Quizzing Dunk, tho, them frame rates are impressive and Im left wondering if FPS is what makes the majority of the difference here :question:
:thanx:

[Camelopardalis]

Thanks Bob!

The ASI224 is just super sensitive and ultra low noise...has the lowest read noise on the market currently, and makes for a great planetary camera :)

I was using 8-bit raw mode here and that makes a good difference compared with jpegs as the raw mode is capturing the value of every pixel as it registered, whereas jpegs use a lossy compression method which has a habit of smoothing out exactly the type of intricate detail we're hoping to capture :sadeyes:

The fps is an interesting subject...I'm certainly no authority, and I've only had the 224 a few months. Before Saturn got high enough the other night I ran some tests on Mars and as it's so small I dialled up the fps to 240fps. Then I captured a sequence at 60fps and I can't tell them apart...

The absolutely key thing about planetary imaging is seeing. If the seeing was perfect, we'd be able to use lower frame rates without consequence, but failing that we can dial up the frame rate and see if we get "lucky" :D

[rustigsmed]

Really nice work Dunk. I'd be stoked with an image like that :thumbsup:



Hi Bob, you can dial up the 600d to 30fps, you need to change the format to NTSC (rather than PAL). or in 720p at 60fps.

[Camelopardalis]

Thanks Russell!

[AstroJason]

Wow Dunk, that is a fantasic image mate.

[Camelopardalis]

Thanks Jason!

[Decimus]

A superb image of Saturn, Dunk - fantastic!:eyepop:
Cheers,
Richard

[Camelopardalis]

Thanks Richard!

[astronobob]

Ahh yes, I remember that now you mention - Cheers for that Russell :thumbsup:
Think my cam if memory serves, is changed to NTSE from a few yrs ago for planetary,, will check all the same.

I was trying a few other techniques, like, 2x barlow with 10x digi zoom & 3x barlow with no zoom & 3x digi zoom ..
Taking it casually atm & a bit out of practice :D

:thumbsup::thumbsup: