Saturn 12th April

[firstlight]

The seeing was pretty crook when I first started tonight, but really settled down around 22:30. If I can capture something like this, then all I can say is what kind of spectacular stuff John and Tom are going to produce. I stayed out as long as I could, but I wanted to leave some time to process and get some sleep before heading to work in the morning. Captured at 12:42 UT.

8"SCT, 4 x Powermate, TouCam SPC880 flashed to SPC900NC (MerlinCam), 10 fps for 300 sec (3000 frames), stacked and processed 2896 frames @ 95% quality in Registax 5, tweaked in PS CS5.

Started out with a much better colour balance in the capture and this has made the process so much easier (still might have cooked it a bit too much). Pretty rough and ready process as I wanted to get at least one sequence processed before hitting the sack.

[Shiraz]

excellent image Tony - plenty of fine detail. Regards Ray

[firstlight]

Thanks Ray,

Very happy with the result... not in the same class as many of the other posters here, but I'm cool with that.

I just put another sequence in Registax last night/this morning when I went to bed, and had a quick look at it this morning. It seemed to have similar ghosting that someone had in one of the other threads. I will have to check if it was the one I captured right after dedewing the corrector with a hair dryer. The image took a while to settle down... tube currents I'm guessing? Could be that the Powermate changed alignment as well... does not bode well for ~40% of the data I captured last night in that case... hmmm.

Cheers
Tony

[jenchris]

I tried that night as well, I didn't get any dew and I still got a vague ghost to one side - not sure what that is.
Your final product is way better than mine, but as you said - you're happy with yours, and to be honest for the amount of work mine took, I'm happy with mine too.
I had fun doing it and I got to check out Registax6.

[Logieberra]

Lovin ya' images Tony. Well done.

A favour pls, take a print screen shot of your capture settings (gain, shutter speed, gamma etc - the whole shebang).

Logie.

[firstlight]

:rofl: That part is a work in progress, but I think I had pretty good settings last night, but the seeing was also pretty good. I'll check it out tonight and post the shot.

[Quark]

Good job Tony, reckon the Saturn addiction has struck for sure.

Certainly helps to get the colour balance as close as possible during capture.

Well done.
Regards
Trevor

[Logieberra]

Trevor, how do you achieve focus on Saturn? Same method as Juptier (try and reach / pin point focus on the moons?)

Logie.

[Quark]

Hi Logan, in poor seeing it is extremely difficult as it will be going in and out of focus quite rapidly. In more stable conditions I try to make the edge of the rings & Cassini division as sharp as possible.

[firstlight]

Hi Jen, I was just putting forward a theory, I thought that the ghosting is coming from tube currents created by the warm corrector plate.

I've tried Registax 6, not sure what I've done wrong, but when I have a chance I will go back and try it again. At this stage I'm finding that 5 does what I want, so I'll stick there for a while. Good luck with you imaging Jen.

[John Hothersall]

Image is just showing the now fainter storm which less than perfect seeing kills, seeing for me has been pretty good although variable, getting a few clear nights run so you may get better seeing? I find Regx5 gives better disc detail and Regx6 better ring detail but Regx6 is so much quicker.

John.

[firstlight]

Thanks John, I will be doing the full treatment on my data when I get home... Unless I'm imaging :).

I had a quick look for the storm when I saw Trevors thread but I'm not convinced I can see it. Looking good out the window right now, might have another late night.

[firstlight]

Sorry were you talking about your image? I can certainly see it there.

[John Hothersall]

Your image Tony, looks like its clear so will have a look outside at twinkling stars and see what its like, you may get another late night?

John.

[firstlight]

Hi Logan,

Hope this helps.

Cheers
Tony

[michaellxv]

Well done Tony, looks good. Good to see you having some success.
BTW what mount do you have your scope on?

[firstlight]

NEQ 6 Michael, and I'm very happy with it's performance.

[asimov]

Nice job Tony.

[firstlight]

Thanks John... was a steady night.