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Old 04-04-2012, 02:45 AM
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jjjnettie (Jeanette)
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Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Monto
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Saturn + Venus and Pleiades

It's been a good night for astro imaging here, especially considering there was a local burn off this arvo that saw a blood red setting Sun.
First is a stack of 18 x 4sec shots. Taken with the 550d and Tammy 180, tripod mounted, thus the reason for the short subs.

Second, my best Saturn to date.
It's amazing the detail I was seeing on the back of the camera. (I shoot in movie crop mode on the 550d) A combo of good seeing and spot on collimation, it makes all the difference.
I still have a lot to learn with processing. It's so different to DSO's. I've probably over sharpened a bit, trying to define the Cassini Division. But in the process I've increased the contrast to the extent of losing any sign of the crepe ring.
But I have more to process, with 3 times the number of frames to work with. I'll see how I go with that, and post it on the forum if it's an improvement on this offering.

Ok, I processed the second image, using 4000 subs this time. And wow....I'm really pleased with the increase in resolution and detail achieved. My 4x powermate should be arriving tomorrow....today. Better get some sleep because I can see another all nighter coming up.
Attached Thumbnails
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Click for full-size image (saturn-4th-april.jpg)
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Click for full-size image (saturn-4000-stack-4th-april-2012.jpg)
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Last edited by jjjnettie; 04-04-2012 at 04:27 AM.
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