Saturn, Jan 19

[bird]

Hi everyone,

Here is my first Saturn image for this apparition, the sky was clear and relatively stable this morning for the first time in months.

This is also the first image with my new scope, using a 16" composite mirror that cools much faster than my previous conical mirror, a Siebert 3x barlow and Grasshopper Express camera from PGR.

The camera was operated with a 640x480 ROI (region of interest) @ 50fps in red and green, and 40fps in blue. It uses a very low noise ccd, the Sony icx674alg, and even at max gain there was almost no visible background noise at all. The camera also uses a 14 bit a-to-d.

The camera has a native resolution of 1920x1440, and will do 15fps at that size, not bad for widefield things like the moon.

cheers, Bird

ps image has been rescaled to 150% during processing.

[Frewi808]

Super Saturn Bird, Nice to have you back !
Freddy

[Paul Haese]

Nice start to the season. Now for the seeing to really start again.

[bird]

Thanks Freddy and Paul, the seeing has really been dreadful here for months, lets hope it starts to improve!

cheers, Bird

[Lester]

Very nice view Bird, thanks. All the best.

[Clayton]

Lovely shot Bird :eyepop::thumbsup:
I hope the seeing gets better in the coming Months :thumbsup:

[bird]

Thanks guys, sadly it's back to rain again ...

cheers, Bird

[samilag]

A spectacular ! Saturn , Bird
Very high quality image with this ccd

Giuseppe

[RobF]

I was just thinking the other day I hadn't seen a Bird image for ages and meant to check what I'd missed. Beautiful rendition of Saturn Anthony, and thanks for the detail on your cam - always of interest to hear what "state of the art" is in planetary imaging.

[Matt Wastell]

Great Saturn! Thanks for sharing, looking forward to more!

[Regulus]

Hi Bird.

I think that's an excellent photo and would be really happy to take one like it.
Got my first view of the red spot on Jupiter the other night and wished I had photo gear already :-)

Look forward to your next pic.

Trevor

[iceman]

Hi Anthony, :welcome: back! Great image to kick things off for 2012.

Well done!

[iceman]

Beautiful smooth processing, Anthony.

This image is now IOTW (http://www.iceinspace.com.au).

I hadn't realised Saturn was rising so early already. I might try and make an effort one morning soon :)

[bird]

Hi Mike, thanks - it's nice to be back again - lets hope that this year is better than the last one :-)

cheers, Bird

[Greg Bock]

Hey Bird, I love the subtle view of the body through the Cassini Division at lower left.
Great shot, colour differences bring out faint details and cloud structure too...love it!!.

[jjjnettie]

:) Great capture!!

[g__day]

Very nice shot!

[atalas]

Wow!isn't that a wonderful shot of Saturn...congrats on the IOTW too!

[strongmanmike]

Great Saturn Bird...is there such a thing :question: a Saturn Bird?...you know what I mean :P

MIke

[bird]

Thanks everyone

cheers, Bird

[Shiraz]

very fine image. regards Ray

[Quark]

Nice work Bird, a great debut for the new mirror.

Regards
Trevor

[Vegeta]

wow, nice shot, the atmosphere must've been really still

[Jen]

:eyepop: wow nice pic Bird :thumbsup::thumbsup: congrats on IOTW woohoo very worthy for it keep em coming :thumbsup:

[Poita]

Great stuff!

BTW, what is the highest resolution you could run (ROI) with that camera to get around 25-30fps?

[bird]

Hi Peter, the speed is mostly determined by the height of the image, at 480 pixels high I get 50fps, at 800 pixels high I get around 30fps.

cheers, Bird