Saturn - my 1st for the season..

[Dennis]

Hi

I finally grabbed my first Saturn of the season! The seeing was quite reasonable with the Cassini Division plainly visible at times on the notebook display, although not all the way around. I had forgotten how dim Kronos was; I had the Gain up to 60% and the histogram was still only reading around 160 with lots of noise present.

Anyhow, here is a stack of the best 108 frames from 1800, 19th Nov 2006 at 4:00am AEST (GMT+10).

C9.25, Televue x2.5 Powermate, Philips ToUcam 840K. Acquired in K3CCDTools and processed with Registax 4 SAP (256 alignment box).

Cheers

Dennis

[h0ughy]

nice Dennis very nice. Looking forward for the "season" ahead. The seeing here was so bad at times that the skyglow just about removed any details produced from the reduced jet stream.

[John K]

Nice way to start your Saturn observing season Dennis, cannot wait to have a go myself soon as well.

The angle change in the rings is now really obvious comapred to last apparition and obviously making the planet dimmer.

[iceman]

Great start Dennis, looking forward to more when the Brisbane seeing kicks in after xmas.

[asimov]

Nice start Dennis. You have done well. I've captured it a couple of times so far this season but no where near the quality of yours.

[ving]

give it a edge preserving smooth?

great image :D

[Robert_T]

Hey Dennis, glad to see you back among the Gas Giants and a great start.:thumbsup: It was a shock for me too how faint it was compared with Jupiter. I couldn't run 30fps as I had to drop exposure down to 1/18th-1/23rd range to get a decent brightness and that was with gain almost to the wall on the DMK!!!

cheers,

[Dennis]

Not what I wanted to hear Robert. :sadeyes: I was looking forward to life on easy street with a DMK. Sub-arc second seeing, no noise, easy focusing, impeccable tracking, tea and muffins at the 'scope, etc.

Cheers

Dennis

[Robert_T]

...well at least I still managed 15fps; no muffin though, unless you count Saturn's bulging waistline;)

[stephenmcnelley]

Hi Dennis, yes the weather was something else wasnt it, i just knew someone somewhere must have been shooting Saturn and its corpulent midriff.
Now we know what it is we were trying to look at, at 2am!

[Dennis]

Hi Stephen

Gosh – you guys were brave; at 2:00am, I reckon Saturn would only have been around 20 degrees above the horizon! I don't get out of bed for anything less than 30 degrees, unless it’s a Mercury transit that is. :lol:

Cheers

Dennis

[davidpretorius]

yes, those brisvegas boys and late january / early feb are an awesome team .

well done dennis

[stephenmcnelley]

Your method is more sensible Dennis i'll grant you that. Sat arvo to 2 am sunday morning was an allnighter for Fraser coast stargazers, and I had to go to work 6.30am sunday morning too!!
Look forward to more of your images and learning how you succeded with them:thumbsup: