Saturn all-nighter 10hrs 9th April 2011

[von Tom (Tom)]

Hi all,

I've done some quick processing of 41 single images of Saturn to create this animation of the planet from 08:04UT to 18:20UT on 9th April 2011.


Every 15 minutes or so I shot 8,000 frames (over 2 minutes at 60fps), stacking the best 2000 in Registax v6 each time to achieve 41 processed "stills" for the night.

I then stacked these 41 frames together for an animation. In this animation I have not altered the angle at which Saturn appeared through the Alt/Az mounted telescope. Atmospheric seeing/ transparency/ extinction effects can be readily seen.

I will work on a few different versions of the images captured, emphasising different aspects of the apparition. For now this is the first rough product:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vontom/5609239435/

And here is one slowed down with the planet aligned with South at top:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm_5uE4vMYQ
Tom

[John Hothersall]

Now that is dedication getting the full revolution of Saturn, excellent work nice and smooth too. Must have taken you an age to process and assemble - love it!

John.

[firstlight (Tony)]

Looks great Tom, the only thing I would suggest is to slow the animation so we can really enjoy each frame. Even if I wanted to put as much time as I want into imaging the planet, my location would prevent it as I have to wait until it rises above the palms in the front and then it will dissappear behind the pecan 3 or 4 hours before planet-set.

Top effort.

[Matt Wastell (Matt)]

Excellent job - there are some really good crisp images amongst that! Thanks for the 10 hour session!!!!!!!

[von Tom (Tom)]

Thanks guys,

It's just a rough animation at this stage. There's a few ways I'd like to show it and it'll take some time to get them done. I will be slowing it down - 2 seconds for a whole nights work at the moment!

Tony I'm pretty fortunate to get a W to ESE expanse with opportunities to get down to a few degrees above to horizon, depending on where I move the Dobsonian on the front driveway.

Tom

[paulF (Paul)]

Loving your work Tom! Really good stuff

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Great result Tom. Major effort and a very good illustration of varying seeing effects. Regards Ray

[von Tom (Tom)]

OK, I've done a fair alignment of the planet (south at top) and slowed down the speed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm_5uE4vMYQ

Tom