First Saturn for the season

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Finally got everything working last night and managed to snap an hour's worth of Saturn between banks of clouds before it started raining

Here's my first quick process of what looked like one of the better sequences. The image is a stack of 200x0.5 sec subs taken with the LPI through a 5x powermate on my 10" f5 Newt. This is my first real attempt at planetary imaging with the LPI.

In the BMP image I think I can see three moons to the left of Saturn however these are not so clear in the JPG.

Stacked in registax, deconvolution and wavelets in PS.

Comments welcome.

[matt]

Looks good, Peter.

A little tweak of Levels in Photoshop will bring it up nicely.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Thanks Matt. I gave curves a try but was getting a bit of combing of the histogram so decided to leave as is. It was quite a trade off between exposure length and getting enough of the histogram populated during the imaging session. That 5x really knocks down the light. I was reluctant to go for more then 1/2 sec subs as the atmosphere was already pretty ordinary.

Peter

[AlexN]

Peter, Maybe give it a go with a 2x or 2.5x barlow.. image scale will suffer obviously, however if you cant get enough light at 5x, then it might be worth it..

Good job in anycase, getting anything in this sort of weather we've had...

Alex..

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Cheers Alex. I did try a 2x and although you get a brighter image it is so small you miss out on the surface detail. Don't know how the DMK users manage to get enough light at those high frame rates?

[matt]

Hi Peter.

I hope you don't mind, but I took your image into PS to see what I could 'see'....and indeed there are three moons to the left of Saturn.

I brought them out using Levels and a little masking.

It's introduced artifacts into the black areas of the image, but I reckon it's worth it so see those little blighters hiding in the image.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Thanks Matt. I've been playing with masks also but still have a lot to learn about PS. I've done a repro including stacking the RGB channels individually. This has allowed a bit more stretching but I chopped off one of the moons using PPM centre.

[Quark (Trevor)]

Hi Peter,

I think this is a good effort with the equipment you are using.
When pushing your equipment to the max basic things like collimation become critical.

Considering the exposure you are using and the magnification, you have done a good job to produce this image.

To use higher frame rates and shorter exposures with objects that are not all that bright, there really is no substitute for aperture.

Maybe it is worth trying at 2 x, although it will result in a smaller image it may be high enough resolution to blow up to similar size to this image and probably show more detail.

At least you are getting out there and having a go and progressing along the planetary imaging learning curve.

Regards
Trevor

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Thanks for the comments Trevor. I did take a look at the colimation before I began imaging with a quick star test and it looked ok although I probably didn't have enough magnification at that time to know for sure.

I haven't had much success at blowing up 2x before but there are so many variables in this game. My best attempts at Jupiter were using 2x with spacer between the barlow and the camera. Might give that another try.

Peter

[troypiggo (Troy)]

Good job Peter.

[Paul Haese]

Peter,

Trevor is on the money regarding aperture. Your 10 inch is just a bit too small for this planet. Although a much more sensitive camera will have an impact. The DMK is certainly more sensitive than your LPI, and given that you would have slightly brighter images. If it is any help, my C14 is struggling to get enough light in this apparition.

Keep trying, use more gain and less frames.

[peter_4059 (Peter)]

Cheers Troy.

Paul, thanks for the advice. Might have to start saving for that DMK.

Peter

[RobF (Rob)]

Nice work Peter.

Can you get me a 2nd DMK and a QHY5 while you're at it?!