Neptune at opposition 17 September 2022

[Averton (P and C)]

Last night the clouds moved off around 11.30pm giving a short opportunity for grabbing some planet images. We had imaged Neptune last Tuesday (13th) thinking that given the recent weather, there was no chance that we would get another opportunity before opposition but we were wrong.

Unfortunately the seeing was far from good but we took images of Neptune as well as Jupiter and Saturn while we were at it.
We caught Triton with Neptune just after midnight making it officially opposition on the 17 September
The moons of Saturn and Neptune appear larger and brighter than actual.

Images taken with 6" SCT, 1.8x barlow, ASI178MC and ZWO ADC.

[Dave882 (David)]

Fantastic shots! Picked up heaps of detail in all of them and Neptune is not easy with a 6” and osc unless conditions are excellent. Well done

[Averton (P and C)]

Thanks Dave. We think that we're lucky to have the equipment and techniques available to us today to make it possible to see as much as we do. Even finding Neptune from our light polluted backyard with only a few stars would be a challenge without accurate goto and great capture software.