Hi All,
Last night I imaged Saturn every 10 minutes from 12:10 UTC to 13:50 UTC to capture an electrical storm on Saturn. The storm has been active since January and is currently at longitude 350 degrees W Sys III in the STrZ (Southern Tropical Zone).
The RPWS (Radio and Plasma Wave Science) instrument on the Cassini space craft has been detecting SED's (Saturn Electrostatic Discharge), lightning from this storm. So this is not just a cloud system but an active electrical storm.
I have "R" channel images every ten minutes for 100 minutes of the transit of this storm and present them here in an animation. I also captured two RGB images at 12:40 UTC and 12:50 UTC that are attached to this post. The storm is quite apparent but I have marked it. All of these images, the RGB's and R channel images in the animation are over processed, my aim is to supply usable scientific data and in this instance not pretty pictures, that said I am pleased with how they turned out.
http://www.iceinspace.com.au/uploads...042009anim.gif
The seeing was variable from 7 to 8/10, good to very good. My son, Christopher monitored the ambient and primary mirror temperatures.
Thanks for looking
Regards
Trevor