Saturn & Jupiter in IR685 (11th Sept)

[Dave882]

Clear night in Sydney tonight but mostly awful conditions for planetary viewing and imaging (literally such bad transparency I kept on checking if clouds had come over).

There was however a couple of moments of better conditions, and I used this to do some initial (first time for me) test runs on some mono planetary imaging - using my asi290mm mini guide cam and RGB, IR685 filters in a drawer. I'm yet to process them or even work out how i'm going to combine them, but just for interest I ran the IR685 shot as it looked much cleaner on the screen than anything else I got this evening. Obviously IR is not affected by seeing so much...the blue channel I could hardly even resolve the Cassini division!

So here's what I've got so far, stacked 30% of 18k frames from a 3min AVI captured in ASICAP with the C14, ZWO ADC & asi290mm.

Side note - don't forget to take off your UV/IR cut filter when shooting with a IR Pass filter - took me several minutes to work out why i wasn't getting much signal through...:rofl:

[leon]

Hey David that is an awesome image, so crisp and clear, very nice indeed.

Leon

[Mickoid]

Nice one Dave, your choice of using the mono camera, IR filter, good processing and the C14 have disguised the bad seeing very well. I wish I could achieve a result like this any night. :thumbsup:

[Dave882]

Thanks Leon & Michael-
It’s the first time I’ve shot Saturn in IR and got the idea from seeing some of Trevor’s (Quark) ridiculously detailed images. It feels like a win when you can salvage some nice images from an ordinary evening!!

[Dave882]

EDIT: Added a 1min IR capture of Jupiter. I had very low hopes as the capture looked terrible on the screen but I’m quite impressed by the detail revealed. Now to work out how to add some colour!

[Anth10]

Very fine results x2.
The sensitivity of the mono is obvious given these examples.
Well done Dave.

Cheers.

[Dave882]

Thanks Anthony. I’m finding the processing quite a learning curve but yes the sensitivity and ability to prioritise detail in the Red & IR may well prove quite useful. The pixel scale for me is a bit better too. I think this may well be my preferred method going forward even when conditions are good…

[Averton]

Both those images have come up really well David. Excellent result regardless of the seeing. Its worth trying different things.

[Dave882]

Thanks guys