Animation Transits Titan+shadow+Mimas+Dione

[Quark]

Hi all,
This is my animation of the entire transit of Titan + Titans shadow.

Mimas is very difficult to make out but is there. It is very close, almost touching, the southern edge of the ring plane. Mimas leads Titan and is moving at about double the speed.

Dione and Enceladus should also be visible, Dione, at 1,120 km across, is double the size of Enceladus 500 km across. They were relatively close together but Dione should be brighter. To see Dione you need to adjust your screens to just the right angle. It is visible under the ring plane to the right or West. Ounce you locate it, watch closely as it approaches the disk of Saturn and you will than see this satellite transit about half of the disk.

When the screen angle is such that Dione can be seen approaching and partially transiting the planet you should be able to pick up Mimas, it just takes some concentration.

This animation lasts only for a few seconds and continually resets.
A lot of effort has gone into this. It represents the motion of Saturn from 11:30 UTC to 16:00 UTC with "R" channel images captured every 10 min's.

For this animation I left out 4 images that did not come up as well as the rest and missed a perfectly good image, just didn't process that avi due to the effects of lack of sleep.

This animation uses the best 15,700 frames of the 39,250 frames that were captured.

CAUTION THIS IS A LARGE FILE 2.7 MB
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/uploads/SatTitanTransit.gif

Thanks for looking
Regards
Trevor

[erick]

Congrats on your eyesight, Trevor! Mimas and Dione must be a pixel or two on my screen - think I spotted them, but I'll have to study the animation later.

Edit - yep, Dione is clear now. Haven't spotted Mimas egressing as yet.

Mind you, the capture of Titan + its shadow is enough of a wonder!

Many thanks.

[Dennis]

Thanks for an excellent animation of this event. It runs very smoothly and I can see the Cassini Division almost all the way through!

I also think I saw Dione and Enceladus, quite a rare record indeed!

Cheers

Dennis

[Space]

This is very impressive !

Good bye !

[iceman]

Brilliant, Trevor! The best i've seen from this event!

Really well done.

[h0ughy]

excellent - bordering on Awesome results

[Matty P]

Fantastic Trevor! Very nice animation. :)

Very well done. :thumbsup:

[starfinder]

Hi Trevor. Video is absolutely stunning! Very well done. Excellent reward for the time and effort you've put in. Keep up the good work. Russ.

[Lester]

Top job, well done Trevor.

[astroron]

Top Job Trevor:)
Watched it about six times and have yet to see all there is :( but will keep trying:thumbsup:

[RobF]

Awesome work Trevor. Thanks for all the hours processing to get it into this enjoyable state too. :)

[edwardsdj]

Awesome animation Trevor.

[bloodhound31]

Like it? Love it!

Baz.

[firstlight]

terrific animation Trevor.

I have stacked all my sequences, still have to do some tweaking then the task of putting together the animation. Not in your class, but I'm still happy with my results.

[Ric]

Excellent work Trevor, that is a stunning animation.

[Quark]

Thanks so much to you all for the encouragement and kind remarks.

I note that some are struggling to see all of the events within the animation.

These are not events with big signs on them saying look here I am. Over the past twelve months I have become accustomed to eeking out minute storm detail on Saturn, so have had quite a bit of practice at this. Of course it would be great to have a higher res CCD but I get the most I can out of the equipment available to me.

This is such a rare event that I really want you all to see this stuff.

I also have problems picking up Dione, unless my laptop screen is bang on the right angle for me. Then Dione becomes a small crisp white dot, immediately under the rings on the right or western side of the planet, mid way between the Cassini Division and the outer edge of the rings. It also helps to not be too close to the screen.

Note, the first thin dark band that appears below the ring plane on the planet. This is the SEBn (Southern Equatorial Band north).

Follow the movement of Dione as it approaches the planet, as it crosses the edge of the planet it becomes a small dark diffuse disk that moves through the SEBn. It travels about a third of the way across the planet before the animation resets.

Mimas is very difficult to detect, but keep at it because when you do pick it up it becomes quite obvious. Mimas is a very small, slightly brighter than the background dot. It appears to be virtually in contact with the underside of the ring plane. It is initially above Titan and moves rapidly across the disk of the planet, almost rippling the the underside of the rings as it goes, at about twice the speed of Titan.

I really hope these instructions help.

Regards
Trevor

[Kevnool]

Very nice animation of the transit Trevor.
Its a credit.
Drop that in your resume.
Cheers Kev.

[Octane]

Trevor,

Your dedication and patience is an inspiration.

Well done!

I'll continue watching the animation with your instructions until I see it all.

Regards,
Humayun

[RB]

This is just absolutely stunning work my friend !!

Thank you for your dedication in producing this for us to see.

[Quark]

Glad you enjoyed it Kev,

Humayun, thanks so much, I really do admire your work and I appreciate your comments.

Andrew, thanks for your support.
Since completing this animation Mike has set me straight with Virtual Dub and Bird has sorted me out with his most excellent ninox or ppmcentre program. I am sure if I reprocessed the lot again I could do a better job. IIS is such a great place to learn the finer points of imaging in all respects.

Bird's planetary work has inspired me to try and go to the next level and with that in mind, I have started work upgrading my primary mirrors cooling system to a peltier device to more closely align my mirror and tube interior to the ambient temperature.

Thanks again,
Regards
Trevor

[peter_4059]

Fantastic animation Trevor. Could you let us know what equipment you used (scope, barlow, camera)? Was the animation created from stacked images and how many frames were in the animation?

Regards,

Peter

[Quark]

Hi Peter,
The avi files captured for this animation were through my 16" F4.5 GEM Newt. I used a Meade model 140 2x air spaced triplet Barlow, an Orion filter wheel with Astronomic RGB filters and a DMK 21AU04 CCD. My scope has a JMI Moto Focus and Ansenn Technologies dual axis drive and drive corrector from Peter Mellander.

All of the images in the animation were "R" channel images. Each of those images were created from avi captures of between 1750 and 2000 frames every ten minute for 4hrs 40mins. I stacked the best 40% (700 to 800) frames from each of the avi files in Registax V4 and did further processing of the images in Astra Image Pro.

As already mentioned in my original post the animation represents the best 15,700 frames of the 39,250 from the avi files that I used to get the images for the animation.

Regards
Trevor

[peter_4059]

Thats a lot of work!