Mars and Saturn 17 Jul 2016

[Sebbie]

Hi all,

Finally processed this batch of images from last weekend. Had three nights of clear skies however seeing in North Canberra was far from good making Mars particularly challenging. Last Sunday it improved dramatically in time for Saturn's maximum elevation. Altaz mount on my scope prevented the use of long Barlows (as I have microfocuser assembly in the imaging train) so I settled for f/26 by combining TeleVue 2x and William Optics 1.6x lenses.

Been playing with various acquisition and processing techniques (particularly white/colour balancing) as I am new to this ASI cam. Overall lots of data massaging post stack including WinJUPOS derotation and AstraImage deconvolution, used AS!2 drizzle stack option on Saturn to improve the image scale.

Saturn animation links:
http://astrob.in/full/256543/0/
http://astrob.in/full/256542/0/

Full res composite:
http://astrob.in/full/256634/0/

Thanks for looking,
Seb

[Quark]

Nice work Seb, the +63 long lived cyclone would be in your Sat RGB from the 17th. It was at the CM at 11:23 UTC so would have been very close to the CM at the time of your RGB 11:17:54 UTC.

Regards
Trevor

[04Stefan07]

Very nice images, great colour too!

[Sebbie]

Thanks Trevor,

I've bumped up wavelets in AstraImage to bring out this and other features on a non-drizzle composite; it is more detectable in monochrome.

Pushing the limits of my 12 incher here, hope to have few more imaging sessions soon to follow these storms.



Thanks Stefan,

I've re-uploaded new revisions yesterday clipping vibrance and increasing green channel. Rings look less pinky now.. learning how to balance aesthetics with realism I guess ;-)

Including few extra pics of my very non-permanent setup and imaging train at Saturn transit.

Cheers,
Seb

[astronobob]

Very nice results Sebastion :thumbsup::thumbsup: