Saturn from Adelaide (27/4/12)

[swannies1983]

After collecting some M83 data, I turned my attention to imaging Saturn for the first time this season. Happy with the result considering I don't have much experience imaging the planets.

Details
Scope: 8" Newt f/6 with 2x barlow
Mount: EQ6
Camera: Toucam
Settings: 10fps, 1200 frames with ~600 stacked.

[von Tom]

Hi Dan, great shot with good colours. If this was taken around 13:50UT then I think you managed to get Titan, Rhea, Tethys and Dione in your image, visible if levels are increased. Stellarium screenshot attached for reference.

Cheers,

Tom

[Quark]

A nice result Dan, crisp with nice detail, all good.

Regards
Trevor

[Clayton]

Nice one Dan :thumbsup:
Do you have extension tubes to up the scale a tad more :question:

[swannies1983]

Thanks Tom. Yeah I might have caught some moons but have a few hot/dead pixels so will have a look.



Cheers Trev.


Yeah image scale is quite small. I don't have any extension tubes but I may give my tal200k a go as it's f/10. The barlow will double it. Not sure how it will go in terms of how bright Saturn will be with only an 8" scope.

[swannies1983]

Rob, I found an additional old 2x barlow. The glass is stuffed so I just took it out, giving me a short extension tube. Here's an image from last night. Scale is a bit bigger but need a longer extension tube (or set up the tal).

[Shiraz]

very good result Dan. Yes, cheap Barlows make good extender tubes - have a couple myself. regards ray

[Clayton]

That's an improvement I reckon Dan :thumbsup:

[carlstronomy]

Hi sorry for hijacking your post here (love your images mine are rubbish) but I was under the impression that extender tubes increased the field of view for example the neximage extender tube from Celestron thus making the image smaller. I can clearly see your image has increased in size, I am a little consfused are we saying a Barlow with the lense removed will still increase the size of the image?

Carl

[Clayton]

Welcome Carl
The "Extension Tube" we are referring to here is either a purchased tube or a homemade one (old Barlow with lens removed) that has no lens/s. It is placed between the normal Barlow (with lens) and the Camera. Increasing the distance between the Barlow and the Camera has the effect of increasing the power of the Barlow. With several of these extension tubes of different lengths, a handy range of powers may be obtained from a single Barlow :thumbsup:

[carlstronomy]

Clayton,

Thank you for the welcome and clarifying the extension tubes.

Carl :thumbsup: