Saturn & Mars 1st Feb.

[asimov]

Hi all, long time no see :)

Just dropping a couple of images in from this morning in reasonable seeing for a change.

C11/DBK618

[ballaratdragons]

Nice work AsiJohn :thumbsup:

They both look superb, but mars is the clear winner. So much surface detail on a planet that is hard to capture detail on :clap:

[asimov]

Hey Ken, how's it going mate? Yeah just lucky with the seeing really. It's been full-on clouds & rain of late up here!

Cheers.

[ballaratdragons]

Good thanks Mate. Nice to see images from you again :thumbsup:

[jjjnettie]

John!! Good to see you again.
About time you got some good seeing. :) Beautiful images.

[asimov]

Hi triple! Long time no see or hear hey...I'll drop into chat in the next couple of nights so's we can catch up on all the goss!:D:lol:

Thanks!

[h0ughy]

wow they are supurb

[asimov]

G'day David. Thanks mate!

[Shiraz]

ahh yes - lovely images - excellent Mars detail. Regards Ray

[asimov]

Hi Ray. Thank you.

[Jen]

:eyepop: wow nice pics John :thumbsup: good to see ya havnt lost your touch :D

[luigi]

What a portrait of Mars, it rocks!

[asimov]

Hi Jen! Thanks for that.

Hi Luis. Another crazy photographer huh? Good stuff! Thanks.

[Phoenix]

Great work John - nice detail on Mars.

Cheers
Steve

[asimov]

Thanks Steve.

While I'm here, another image along with a Stellarium simulation.

[Quark]

Very nice results Asi, obviously I prefer Saturn of the two images but Mars is a top effort also.

Cheers
Trevor

[asimov]

Thanks Trevor. From a technical standpoint, Saturn is the better result considering it was a one of capture for only 2 mins in a sucker hole amongst the clouds. Didn't have a lot of time to get it together (settings) so I basically winged it. Yeah I'm very happy with the Saturn shot & like you, prefer it over the Mars image.

[asimov]

Oh, & naturally there will be a Saturn reprocess coming soon ;-)

[Screwdriverone]

Wow John,

Both very nice images, but the pick for me is the side by side with the Stellarium simulation.....uncannily similar.

So many details match up (apart from the poles, obviously) but WOW, how cool is that!!!!

Excellent work, wishing for some sky that isnt saturated with rain for a look myself.

Cheers

Chris

[coco1]

wow, that pic of Saturn is remarkable
:eyepop:

[asimov]

Hi Chris & thanks mate. Yeah, I'm almost impressed with the side by side myself lol.

Thanks Stephen.

Here you go Trevor. Top left is the original size & the resize bottom right. Found Tethys in the RAW footage, so I highlighted it by stretching the heck out of the Registax final stack & superimposed it onto this final..Enceladus is right next to it but it was too hard a task to resolve it. Extremely happy with this Saturn capture now.

[Domol]

Wow!! Great shots. best i've seen thru a C11!. Are they at f50?

[michaellxv]

Both very nice images John.
There's a lot of detail in the Mars image, really like it.
Saturn looks great, never ceases to amaze me the details that can be seen from this distance.

[asimov]

Hi Domenic - You are right, I should add some capture details.

Thanks Michael!

Mars was imaged at F40 (11" SCT) in 7-7.5/10 seeing.13:30 AM AEST. Alt 68 degrees. 180s capture @ 60 FPS. Gain was set at 60% with an exposure of 1/61s. 105 gamma (100 default). 3000 stacked in Registax Ver. 6 with 5 alignment points. Y800 codec & debayered in Firecapture Debayer tool. Resampling (130%) to the RAW data was applied in VirtualDub.
Post processing was done in Paint.net.

Saturn was imaged at F22 (11" SCT) in the same seeing. Alt. 65 degrees 15:30 AEST 1st Febuary.
133s capture only due to incoming cloud @ 30 FPS. Gain was set to 100% with an exposure of 1/31s. 105 gamma (100 default) 1500 stacked in Registax Ver. 6 with 3 alignment points. Y800 codec & debayered in Firecapture Debayer tool. Resampling (110%) to the RAW data was applied in VirtualDub. A further resize up in Registax.
Post processing in Paint.net.

[Quark]

Really like the original Asi, very crisp but still the "C" ring came up quite well. You would have to be stoked with that. In good seeing I reckon you would get away with a lot more than 6.1 m F/L. I am getting good results at 9.6 m with the 5x PM, obviously the 5x PM isn't going to work with the C11 but just wonder if you have ever looked at getting out around 10 m F/L.

Regards
Trevor

[asimov]

Hi Trevor. The Saturn capture was a bit like imaging the ISS I think. After imaging Mars @ F40 it clouded out & I knew F40 would be miles too much for Saturn, so I swapped to the 2X barlow just to be ready for when Saturn popped out from the cloud cover. Had I had something like 5 or 10 mins I would have gone to F25 or higher. As it was it was only 133 secs worth & the other 15 odd secs was spent doing the camera settings & focus. It's the nature of sucker hole imaging in QLD on the coast - Be ready or post nothing.

I like the original too. Normally I don't bother to resize but lately I've been guilty of it..

Thanks Trevor.

[Matt Wastell]

Great views - thanks!

[asimov]

Hi Matt & thanks mate.

Lucky last Mars.