Saturn in good seeing, march 25

[bird]

Here's an image from early in the session of last night in very good seeing. The SED storm is not yet visible at this time, but you can see Tethys on the right hand side above the rings and Enceladus below the rings and just to the left of the planet (that's a bit of a challenge to see).

cheers, Bird

[DavidU]

So sharp ! Terrific image Anthony.
(hows the bigger mirror going?):D

[bird]

Thanks David, still using the 14.5" mirror at the moment, there are a few delays with the 16"...

cheers, Bird

[Steffen]

Fantastic image! Can you give this imaging noob some info on equipment, method, post-processing etc used?

Cheers
Steffen.

[bird]

Hi Steffen, the scope was a 14.5" f/5 newtonian, there's a picture here:

http://www.acquerra.com.au/astro/equipment/Nemesis-16/

I'm using a Point Grey Research camera called Dragonfly2, a TV 5x powermate to increase the image scale, and astrodon RGB filters.

The camera runs at about 25fps for Saturn, and I capture 90 seconds in each filter, so there's about 2500 raw frames available and I normally stack about 1400 of the best frames.

cheers, Bird

[iceman]

That's a beauty. Very nice work Anthony.

[Troy]

Very nice picture Bird :D

[Steffen]

Thanks Anthony,
that's an impressive scope project!



Does this camera have its own lens, or do you use a projection eyepiece, or how does it work?



Interesting, I'm about to try something similar, only with an iSight camera (external firewire type). I have to fashion some kind of adapter to do this, but have no idea what sort of images to expect…

Cheers
Steffen.

[bird]

Steffen, that's similar to my camera - an external firewire camera that uses the scope+barlow as its lens.

cheers, Bird

[bird]

... and another image from a little later. Tethys (above the ring) and Rhea (below the ring) are easily visible, and Dione is faintly seen at the extreme right hand edge.

The saturn SED storm can be seen as a white patch at the upper right in the southern hemisphere.

cheers, Bird

[Lester]

Fantastic detail in these images Anthony. There are some smaller light patches just above the rings; could these be smaller storms?

Thanks for the view.

[Quark]

Beautiful images Bird,
The storm is considerably dimmer but the is still a detectable stream of material flowing to the west off of its northern edge.

I think I may have psychic powers Bird, just got this overwhelming feeling that a 12 bit CCD is in my future.

Regards
Trevor

[Quark]

Hey Bird, just checked out your images again and now that you have pointed it out to me, the shadow of the G ring is very well defined in your first image and while not as well defined, still visible in your second.

That is such a cool thing, to be able to image it with an amateur scope is a real buzz.

Regards
Trevor

[duncan]

DROOOOOLING AGAIN!!!!!!

Between yourself and Trevor i'll just sit back and DROOOL!

Very nice images.
Cheers,
Duncan:thumbsup:

[Matt Wastell]

Sweet!

[leon]

Now that is superb, so crisp and clear, excellent work.

Leon

[acropolite]

Delightful images Bird, amazing detail.:thumbsup:

[bird]

Thanks all, we have another chance at the SED storm tonight, hopefully the seeing will cooperate :-)

Bird