Saturn Animation 9th Jan

[Quark]

Hi All,

Just installed FileZilla and hopefully have uploaded my animation.

This animation is of 6, R channel images at ten minute intervals. There is one interesting bright spot with possibly two smaller ones preceding it, just nth of the equator.

It looks like a moon but I can't make out a shadow. I checked out "The Sky" for the positions of the major moons but doesn't seem to be anything in this position, Tethys should be just sth of the equator.

This bright spot looks like the one Bird imaged on the 5th Jan and is at a similar longitude.

Hope the link works, its my first upload.

http://www.iceinspace.com.au/uploads/Saturn Animation2.gif

Regards
Trevor

[iceman]

Nicely done, Trevor. The animation works well - you conquered the upload :)

[alphajuno]

Very nice clarity and detail. Thanks.

[Quark]

Thanks Mike,

Must admit, felt a bit worried about installing the client and doing the upload. Its a bit of a problem not being a computer savvy person in a computer age, but I give it my best shot.

Regards
Trevor

[iceman]

It's now a skill you have! You needn't be worried next time :thumbsup:

[kinetic]

You have got better eyes than me Trev :)
I use Filezilla heaps...it's very straight forward.

I can easily see the moon (top square frame 5) and I can also see
a dark shape if I concentrate on your animation for ages (bottom square frame 5).

Anything near the equator/ring plane would be a moon wouldn't it?
And because of the alignment with the sun/inner solar system/us and the
ring plane, I'd imagine a moon shadow would be close to the moon itself and not more towards the poles?

So what I can see (bottom square) would be a storm?..35N?

well done Trev,
You certainly have your Saturn technique down to a fine art

regards,
Steve B.

[Quark]

Hi Steve,

Yep FileZilla sure must be easy to install, even I managed to configure it and it actually worked.

I have spent so many hours staring at Saturn images that I reckon I can just about sense when there is something different.

As you suggest the spot near the equator has to be a moon, just haven't been able to identify which one, yet. It looks so similar to what Bird imaged on Jan 5th and is at a pretty similar longitude.

Any storm structure should be at about 35 Sth or Nth. The wind speeds closer to the equator should be too high for storm structure to develop and survive.

The bright spot that Bird imaged on Jan 5th, which has to be a moon, appeared to throw a definite shadow that seemed clearly separated from the bright spot and it's movement seems well synchronized with the bright spot or moon. Admittedly Bird has more image scale, 2 x against 5 x.

There was also another dark spot following the shadow in Birds animation at this same latitude.
Georg says that he is not currently detecting any SED's (Saturn Electrostatic Discharge) so any spots that we image at the moment may just be persistent spots and not storm structure.

Cheers
Trevor

[Jen]

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup: very nice Trevor thanks for sharing :thumbsup:

[bird]

Tervor, nice animation, and well done on trying filezilla. I saw you were using Noise ninja so I've bought a copy of that to try out, it looks very useful.

I'm going to try and image this longitude again asap, I'm really curious about the bright spot we're seeing - if it was a moon then it would not appear at the same longitude each time.

regards, Bird

[bird]

Trevor, one more random thought - with Saturn at quadrature any moon shadow will be well separated from the moon's image, ie separated by half the planet diameter or more given the relative positions of the sun and earth.

So any moon transit should have a shadow that's a long way from the moon.

regards, Bird

[Trido]

Very impressive!

[Quark]

Hi Bird,

Yes, this bright spot seems quite mysterious. Next opportunity for that longitude will be the morning of Jan 13th.

In your animation the dark spot, much closer to the pole, looks very much like a shadow, however I cannot really detect a shadow in my images, neither in the R channel stills or the animation.

Noise Ninja sure does make a difference, it obviously helps with planetary imaging and should be very handy with deep sky imaging.

Regards
Trevor