Seeing was pretty good last night around 8pm on Saturn. This image is a combination of data from 2 separate runs at 7.56pm and 8.02pm
What pleases me most about this image is that I seem to have solved the internal reflection problem that has plagued all my Saturn images this year, no more hard edge in this image.
The solution was to pull my camera apart and remove the glass cover plate in front of the ccd, I'm guessing that it's a bad idea to have 2 glass surfaces (the cover plate and the ccd) close together. Almost guarantees internal reflections.
Note how dark the rings are getting, they're on the way to zero visibility in another couple of months.
Good to see that the seeing is co-operating at last.
Love the colour and just how well defined the Cassini Division is, a truly stunning effort, brilliant really, when considering the tilt of the rings.
There still appears to be a slight inner line, mirroring the edge of the disk from the underside of the rings along the North East limb and more faintly, above the rings along the South West limb.
This is very minor and I only mention it as I know full well that you are striving for perfection. To me, this is much more noticeable along the lower left, North East limb.
Trevor, yes the limb is still not perfect, a combination of the not-so-perfect seeing and processing I think. Also saturn is dim and this leads to under-exposure especially as I still insist on using 25fps :-)
I currently use a TV 5x powermate which has 4 lenses. I saw a cheapie 5x barlow on bintels site on Friday that has 3, I'm guessing it's a rebadged GSO 5x barlow (but thats a guess). I've read some reviews of the GSO 5x barlow that seemed pretty good so I've bought this 5x barlow and I'll compare it to the powermate.
