Saturn+storm+transit & shadow of Tethys+Rhea+Dione in very good seeing March 25th

[Quark]

Hi All,

Imaged Saturn in very good seeing this morning. Had a narrow band of cloud in the way at midnight but it cleared by 1:30 am CSST. The seeing started out good and just got better. The 2 RGB's posted here were captured in very good seeing 8/10. I got so carried away with my imaging that I lost track of where my scope was, right up to the point where I drove it into the mount just as I was about to start my 17:00 UTC capture.

This is close to the best data I have ever captured for Saturn, it is so good that I was able to resize it 130% prior to processing in Astra Image & CS4. I was going to resize back down but it looks quite good the way it is.

The storm is much dimmer but the zoomed crops that I have attached of the storm to each image reveal the stream of material that Bird noticed on March 18th is still visible. Tethys is in transit in the second image and it is well resolved as is its shadow, Dione and Rhea can be seen to the West.

Had a minor problem with my filter wheel. It rotated slightly on the nose cone thread each time I manually rotated the next filter, I was not aware of this until late in the session, but was able to rectify it for the last 2 RGB's which cover the storm.

Thanks for looking.
Regards
Trevor

[bird]

Excellent Trevor, Tethys and shadow are nice in the second image as well.


cheers, Bird

[Lester]

Fantastic detail there Trevor. Thanks for the view.

[tonybarry]

Great work, Trevor. A pleasure to see it - I was looking at Saturn three nights ago through my 8" SCT but was not nearly as nice as your excellent image :-)

Regards,
Tony Barry

[Clayton]

2 nice images. The second is a ripper.

[Quark]

Thanks very much Bird, not up to your standard but I think my imaging has come a long way over the last 12 months. I think the Peltier has made a big difference and I got the inspiration to build it from you.



Thanks very much Lester, we had some very stable air overhead this morning.



Thanks Tony for your most generous comment.



Thanks Clayton, I was really pleased just how well resolved the transit of Tethys and its shadow came out.

[bird]

Trevor, I believe your second image shows the shadow of the G-ring (the faint line above the ring shadow across the planet). It's also visible to some extent in my first image from last night, but it needs very steady seeing.

cheers, Bird

[Quark]

Hey Bird, just how cool is that.
I have never seen it before or even looked for it.
It is also in my first image but not well defined.

It sure is crisp as, in the second image, thanks very much for pointing that out to me.

As I mentioned earlier, the seeing started out good and just kept getting better.

Regards
Trevor

[duncan]

I can only DROOOOOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!
Excellent images :thumbsup:

Cheers,
Duncan

[Quark]

Thanks Duncan, you are too kind.
Now I need to sort out the rotation problem with my filter wheel and get out there and have another go. As Buzz Lightyear would say "To Infinity and Beyond"

Cheers
Trevor

[Kevnool]

The imaging and processing are just getting better and better Trev.
Cheers Kev.