My best Saturn so far - 19th Dec

[iceman (Mike)]

Yesterday morning I was out again at 3am to capture Saturn, hoping to improve on my 18th December effort.

The 2 mornings were pretty much identical - clear skies, but bad transparency. Average seeing, about 5/10 if you squint hard.

But for about 5 minutes, the seeing hit a good patch and I was able to get a good red channel, a reasonable green and a usual poor blue channel to assemble the 5x powermate image, which is my best for the season so far.

The 3x barlow image was taken during the average seeing (at the start of the session), and looks almost identical to the 3x image captured the day before. The 5x powermate image however, is much better as it was captured during the patch of steady seeing which I would rate at about 7/10.

The poor transparency meant a high gain, and captured at 15fps (1/15s). Stretching the histogram during processing (to get a brighter image) resulted in a lot of grain coming out. I probably should've captured at 7.5fps (1/8s), but wanted more frames. Maybe I just need more aperture!?

Captured for 2 minutes on each colour channel. I captured Luminance, but didn't use it during the processing as it didn't help the image.

Anyway, happy with the large image - my best so far this season and hopefully I can build on that as it approaches opposition.

Thanks for looking, comments welcome.

[matt]

Great work Mike

The variation in colour in the bands is terrific.

Looks like you captured that red "collar" at the pole.

Well done

[Robert_T]

Hi Mike, excellent shot, the 5x looks even clearer than the 3x so the seeing must have hit the sweet spot. Matt's right you've got the red collar of goodness too

What are you running the gain up to Mike on the DMK, I might be pushing mine a bit high (generally 900 to 950) which is pushing up the grain.

Wonder if there's a wayto simulate a credible colour shot with just Red and Green channels?

cheers,

[iceman (Mike)]

Originally Posted by Robert_T

What are you running the gain up to Mike on the DMK, I might be pushing mine a bit high (generally 900 to 950) which is pushing up the grain.

I'm pushing mine up over 900-950 as well, sometimes over 1000 especially for the blue channel. It's making the image very grainy, but with the transparency so poor, and Saturn so dim at the moment, it's the only way to get a bright enough image without getting more aperture, or using a slower shutter speed.

Originally Posted by Robert_T

Wonder if there's a wayto simulate a credible colour shot with just Red and Green channels?

Not that I know of - I tried it a few weeks ago when I was only able to capture a red and green channel before clouds came over and I wasn't able to capture blue.

I combined the red and green to make a synthetic blue, and then tried to combine them into an RGB image - it sort of worked, but the colour balance was horrible and I just couldn't get it to look right - so I gave up.

[ving (David)]

brilliant colours there mike. top stuf

gotta go sell a kidney now so i can get a dmk

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

nice work Mike!

Bird

[Striker (Tony)]

Really nice Mike.

I give it 9.3474 out of ten.

Great job and well presented.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Beaut shots.
The coming weeks will be a real treat to us armchair photographers. With each posting getting betterer and betterer.

[Dennis]

Just lovely Mike, a real treat to see these wonderful Saturn images.

Cheers

Dennis

[spearo (Frank)]

Mike,
nice work
it's great to see the detail i nthe shot from the 5x powermate.
frank

[Lester]

excellent image Mike.

[davidpretorius]

you bloody beauty, excellent.

now the race is on, bird, mike, john, rob out of the blocks..............a few stragglers to come to try and knkoco em off.

well done

[matt]

Not straggling Davo

Need the clouds to part and smoke to clear and then it's game awnnnnnnnnnn!!!!

[hevelsky]

Hi Mike,
Great image with many details
and nice color....
Well done

[RB (Andrew)]

Excellent work Mike.
I especially like the 5x PM version.

[h0ughy (David)]

must be a happy boy with that one Mike! WELL DONE!