Saturn 25/01/2009

[Quark]

Hi All,

Imaged Saturn this morning every ten minutes from 17:00 UTC to 18:10 UTC.
Used DMK21AU04 and IC Capure on 16" F4.5 Newt.

The temperature was 22 C at 3:30am CSST and the seeing was 6-7/10, however this was interspersed with times of very good clarity. This session provided the best data I have captured for this apparition.

All of my captures this morning were 2000 frames / channel. Each image represents the best 600 / 2000 for that particular channel.
There is much activity currently on Saturn. I have attached a "R" channel image that has three features in it. A white spot in the SEBZ (Southern Equatorial Belt Zone). A white spot in the STrZ (South Tropical Zone) and a white spot in the EZn (Equatorial Zone north).

This "R" channel image is one of the highest resolution, that I have ever taken. In it can be clearly seen the Cassini Division, the shadow of the planet on the rings to the east and the black gap between the planet and the rings to the west. The image is heavily processed to bring out the faint storm structure.

The colour image I have attached is, in my opinion, the best I have ever taken. Can't wait for some better seeing with Saturn just so much higher than it was in 2008.

I will post an animation of five of my "R" channel images from this morning in another post.
Thanks for looking
Trevor

[renormalised]

Nice shot, Trevor....that storm in the EZn was the one you could also see in Chris Go's shots from the Phillipines. In his animation, you could also see cirrus coming off the storm.

[kinetic]

Very nice result Trev,

Steve

[Quark]

Hi Renormalised,

Love the work of Chris Go, he is also a part of Georg Fischer's observing team.

Don't think the feature in my image is the same as the one in Chris's animation. The feature I imaged is at approx long 320 degrees W.
For 23/01/2009 at 17:32 UTC the CM is long 251 degrees W.

Actually the label that looks like it refers to the white spot in the EZn region, is 23/01/2008 17:32 UT. I looked at that time and date with "The Sky 6" and Titan is no where near a transit on that date in 2008. Must have meant 2009.

Georg tells me that there are equatorial cloud features in the EZn that have been previously imaged, maybe by Chris, I am not sure.

Regards
Trevor

Regards
Trevor