Saturn storm Feb 22nd 2011

[Quark]

Hi All,

Imaged Saturn this morning in an attempt to image a very faint plume that is in Storm Alley South at approx CMIII 56 degrees. The seeing ranged between very poor and fair.
This region was available to me at the very start of the session but unfortunately that was also the poorest seeing of the session.
I was able to image it but due to the seeing have it only in an R channel image.

Since the arrival of Cassini back in 2004 all of the storm activity has been in Storm Alley South, that was until the outburst of the amazing storm we now see in the North ( Storm Alley North. This region has previously been in the shadow of the rings but now is Sunlit and has become very active regarding the level of SED's ( Saturn Electrostatic Discharge) lightning that is being detected by Cassini.

Have attached the R channel image of the faint plume in Storm Alley South along with 3 RGB and 3 807nm IR data sets in no better than fair seeing. These images are of the head of the storm along with the fainter plumes that stretch to the East.

Have also attached links to animations of both data sets that are on my website.

http://trevsastronomy.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=117882775 (http://trevsastronomy.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=117882775)
http://trevsastronomy.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=117882774 (http://trevsastronomy.webs.com/apps/photos/photo?photoid=117882774)

Thanks for looking
Regards
Trevor

[John Hothersall]

Thats a very interesting development spotted in the South Saturn is very restless, pity about seeing not making it clear. Just itching to get out again hopefully soon.

John.

[Matt Wastell]

Excellent stuff Trevor - I am relying on image of Saturn as nights are very non astronomy busy of late - thanks for the views!

[samilag]

Trevor very interesting sequence of images with a lot of details on storm evolution.

Thank you for share
Giuseppe

[Lester]

Thanks for the views Trevor, I appreciate it.

[Paul Haese]

Nice views despite the seeing Trev. Have been trying to get out each morning but the seeing has been pretty horrid. I want to give the flea a run.

[Quark]

Thanks John, this very faint plume in the South has been around for a while but is easily overlooked even in good seeing. Obviously it is great to be imaging in good seeing but data of scientific value can be captured even in ordinary conditions, as this R channel image demonstrates.
I look forward to better conditions out here and wait with great expectation for Mark Suchting to finish "FRED's" new primary, in the mean time, I hope your sky's clear and deliver you more good seeing as I love what you have been doing with it.



Thanks very much Matt, as I hope you get to image a flare, just how good would that be!!!!



Thanks very much Giuseppe, there are now several very interesting targets within the storm structure to image, the head, the large dark spot in the tail, the plumes in the overlap of the tail and the faint plume in the Southern Hemisphere.



Thanks very much Lester, I appreciate your comment.



Thanks Paul, looking forward to your first Saturn with the Flea, even in ordinary conditions the extra sensitivity of the Flea, particularly at the red & into the IR of the spectrum makes IR imaging a possibility.

[Clayton]

Very nice Trevor. All good but I really like Number 4 RGB

[Shiraz]

very interesting images Trevor. thanks for posting.