Saturn 8th April 2011 (3hrs 40min)

[von Tom]

I did a series of Saturn last night in variable seeing conditions (poor to very good to poor). Here is one image. I'll try for an animation later.

Cheers,

Tom

[Quark]

Thats a really nice result Tom, your planetary work is coming along nicely.

Not sure about your processing regime. The "C" ring is difficult to do a good job with but when done well certainly tops off the overall look of Saturn.

In this image the "C" ring is black and thus invisible. This is often a result of trying for just too much contrast, possibly with the curves, gamma or levels settings. Don't get me wrong, this is a nice image but it could be even better if the "C" ring was visible.

Not sure if you have heard of Donald Parker, Don is a highly respected planetary imager from the USA a pioneer in this field and he handles the "C" ring better than most. I have attached a recent image of his to give you an idea of how good the "C" ring can look.

Well done
Regards
Trevor

[von Tom]

Thanks for the information Trevor, very much appreciated. I think the part of my processing in question reference the C ring is in the capture stage. I max out the in-camera saturation, sharpness and contrast purposely to bring up the details and colour on the disc and the C ring suffers quite a bit even before processing. I feel this is one of the trade offs for what I am interested in seeing. I can go back an look at some of my less aggressive captures.

Thanks again,
Tom

[von Tom]

This one might be pushing the processing too far but I like the image! (2x drizzled in Registax)

[michaellxv]

Great sequence Tom, 3 or 4 where the conditions look very good.

[Matt Wastell]

Thanks for the views Tom!