Saturn 23rd May

[asimov]

Seeing was much the same as last night but I'd say it was ever so slightly worse. Plenty of cloud about stuffing the show up so I just had to be patient. Anyway, I'll take this as another run on the board for this apparition.

In the shot is Enceladus, Dione & Tethys. Mimas is supposed to be there but I failed to show it up due to the seeing.

C11/DBK @ F22

[Quark]

Well done Asi, reckon patience is certainly a prerequisite for planetary imaging. Good onya for making the most of the opportunities that arise.

Regards
Trevor

[asimov]

Thanks Trevor. Comes pretty easy these days having a permanent setup. 5 or 6 mins to get a planet on the livefeed definitely takes some of the necessary patience & die hard, one eyed determination out of the equation. The hardest part is being on call each & every night. I've made that a mandatory part of my life though.

[Troy]

Nice image John, I really like the moons 8-)

[Screwdriverone]

Sheeet John,

That's a cracker.

Can I ask.....did you capture and blend the moons separately or with the planet?

I never seem to be able to even see the moons....without blowing out the disc due to over exposure....

I might have to attend an Asimovian DBK618 course....;)

Cheers

Chris

[asimov]

Pretty simple really Chris. After stacking in Autostakkert, I take it into Registax & do the usual thing with waveletts & save the image. I then stretch the heck out of the same image using contrast/brightness until I see any available moons. I save that image as well (renamed). Remember, by all accounts both are the same image, only one is stretched & renamed.

I then open both images up in Paint.net, my editing program. I carefully copy one moon at a time with a circular mask, & place (paste) them on the normal image. Paint.net now takes into account that they are the same image in a positional aspect & auto-places each moon exactly in the correct position as in the stretched image. Once I've placed all the moons in their positions, I'll mask them all (excluding the planet) & brighten them up a tad if necessary & blur them out using a Gaussian blur mask.

End of DBK618 lesson #1 - That'll be 50 bucks mate:P:D

[samilag]

Very good work Asi,
interesting combination between Planet and moons with excellent results

Giuseppe

[Shiraz]

Very tidy result Asi. regards Ray

[LucasB]

Beautiful image! Smooth and detailed!:thumbsup:
Lucas

[Poita]

I do a similar thing in photoshop. I export the planet and stretched to hell moon images and load both images into photoshop.
I then do a 'select all' in photoshop of the moons image, and copy and paste it to a new layer in the planet image.
I can then erase all but the moons from the 'moons layer' and use feathering tools etc. to get a perfect look, and have everything in exactly the right spot. Works a treat, and should work in any program that supports layers.
It has the advantage of being able to select just the moon layer to do adjustments to and not having to bother masking the planet etc.

John, any images or details of your permanent setup? Sounds great to be able to get imaging so quickly.