Saturn+storm+animation, morning of March 22nd

[Quark]

Hi All,

Imaged Saturn this morning from 1 am CSST through to 3 am CSST.

The sky was clear and the seeing not to bad at about 5 1/2 to 6 / 10, the seeing was effected by the jetstream. The GFS charts indicate that it should be great for Wednesday morning but that doesn't fit in with imaging the region of the storm.

Have 5 RGB's that I have put into an animation, again, there is some very nice rippling on the edge of the NEB, EZ border.

I have attached an image prior to the storm rotating into view which was captured in the best seeing of this session, the ring brightening effect mentioned by Bird is most prominent, an unusual look indeed.

I have also attached my final image for the session with the storm close to the CM. It is not as bright as the last time I imaged it on March 17th, it is still quite extended in longitude. I attempted to measure this spread with WinJUPOS and it seems to extend over approx 16 degrees. To minimize any spreading effect from the time it took to capture the 3 channels I did the measurement on the R channel image.

Thanks for looking.
Regard Trevor

PS: The images with the storm are processed heavier than I would normally go, to better define the storm.

[Lester]

Nice capture of the storm Trevor, plus the ripples on the top edge of the EQ region below the rings. I have not noticed the ripple in the EQ region other years, is this new, or just me looking closer at your images?

All the best.

[Quark]

Thanks Lester,

I think the rippling is mostly always there but to reveal it you need to image it over several hrs. My last 2 animations were from captures at 30 min intervals and that seems to highlight the effect quite well.

Lester, if you get the opportunity tonight, at 13:50 UTC the storm will be at the CM. The weather looks good up here and the GFS jetstream chart looks a bit better than it did for last night.

Cheers
Trevor

[Lester]

Thanks Trevor for your reply. I will have a look tonight, although have got the high altitude swirl type clouds that are present with winds high up.

All the best.

[bird]

Thanks Trevor, nice work again, in less than optimal conditions.

cheers, Bird

[daveg]

Storm's vry obvious Trevor well done, know what its like to battle jetstreams being right on the edge of the Atlantic. Do we know how wide in miles (or kms) it is?

DG

[kinetic]

Ripper , as always, Trev,

love the Seeliger (sp?) effect.

Steve

[Quark]

Thanks Bird, I suppose, as long as the storm is resolved well enough to keep tabs on its coordinates then its usable data.



Thanks Dave, its a whopper, currently it extends over about 15 degrees longitude. Saturn at 9.4 Earth diameters is 120,536 km equatorial diameter so this storm would be approx the equivalent of the continent of Australia.



Thanks Steve, this ring brightening sure provides a different look, not sure if I have noticed it previously.

[Ric]

Lovely work Trevor, the animation with the storm is fascinating.