Saturn's back!

[Tulloch]

I finally got some clear weather on Thursday, so I shook off the cobwebs and headed out to the cold and dewey conditions. Seeing was pretty bad, collimation was difficult and there seemed to be some fog around which reduced transparency. The corrector fogged up pretty regularly, but in the end I got a few captures done before the Sun got too high.

The first image shows Saturn with (L-R) Dione, Tethys and Rhea at 150% captured size with the moons shown larger and brighter than actual, the second taken at 0620 when it was so bright I could hardly see the planet, but I was able to extract a little more detail on the disc than the earlier captures.

Celestron Evolution C9.25 SCT, ZWO ADC, Televue 2.5x Powermate, ASI224MC. Elevation angle was about 40 degrees.

[Dave882]

Fantastic shots Andrew! interesting to see the shift in the angle of the rings since last year. You’ve nabbed some great detail for so early in the season

[Saturnine]

Thanks for posting, good to see that the next planet season is underway. Nice images by the way, also of interest is how much the rings have closed , compared to last year.

[Crater101]

Really nice bit of work for the conditions that you describe. I do like the first one in particular. :thumbsup:

[Averton]

Nice images Andrew!

[Anth10]

Inspiring Andrew!
Glad to see Saturn again. Looks a treat.

[Tulloch]

Thanks all, it's good to have it back :)