Saturn 5 April 2013 1628UT

[Paul Haese]

Finally went down to Clayton on Friday night to capture some Saturn data. It was a busy day with capturing solar data in the morning, DSO imaging during the night as well as some time lapse and then some Saturn data in the small hours. Lots of data to look through and work on, but this was a first for me to capture all the various imaging pursuits in the one day that I am into at present.

Saturn is looking rather nice now for us southerners and we have waited a long time for that to occur. Seeing was around 7/10 with some nice spells of great seeing. Earlier in the evening I looked at Saturn through Tim's 22" and saw the buttery colouring of the planet, and compared this to the view I was getting in the C14. Graeme brought down his AP scope and mount and was doing some visual with it while I was imaging. I heard Tim and Graeme commenting on the views they were getting and it all sounded very positive.

In the Saturn image you can see the Enke quite well, as well as the hex at the pole, some nice structure in the rings and a few spots here and there in the belts. Overall quite happy with this image.

Click here for larger image

Edit, I have included a refined image now for everyones consideration.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Wow another corker Saturn pretty similar level of detail to Steve's there Paul and it is interesting to see the changes in the globe and rings over the intervening year. Very nice work and sounds like you had a super astronomy day/night too

Mike

[multiweb (Marc)]

Pretty awesome. The transparency of the inner ring is really obvious along the limb. Superb colors and details.

[Larryp (Laurie)]

Superb image, Paul

[asimov (John)]

Nice work, & good to see an image from you, Paul.

[EricB (Eric)]

What a great picture Paul!!

Eric

[allan gould]

Brilliant picture Paul, as usual.

[iceman (Mike)]

Beautiful image!

[Quark (Trevor)]

Off to an impressive start Paul, good seeing has been a much scarcer commodity this year compared to the last 5 or 6 years.

Regards
Trevor

[h0ughy (David)]

just got off the floor - simply amazingly lovely shot Paul!!!

[Saturn%5 (Graeme)]

Super work Paul.

[UniPol]

Nice

[U.K.Cowboy (Stuart)]

Very nice image Paul!

[Paul Haese]

Just letting everyone know I have done a reprocess of the data. It is the one on the right. Certainly a lot nicer I think.

[barx1963 (Malcolm)]

That is a ripper!

Malcolm

[Paul Haese]

Thanks guys for the comments. Appreciated.

Originally Posted by Quark

Off to an impressive start Paul, good seeing has been a much scarcer commodity this year compared to the last 5 or 6 years.

Regards
Trevor

It's a bit like waltzing in a bit late really. You, John and Tom have been putting in the yards for months. My various imaging interests now mean I cannot put at much time into planetary imaging as I once did. So getting a great shot to start with eases the pressure to get out a lot more. If I see the same sort of predictions occur again in the next month I will be down there again though.

However, I must say it took be a bit to get setup on the night. I have not done any planetary imaging since March last year. Almost forgot what I needed to do next, as well as monitor what was going on in the observatory with the DSO imaging gear.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Pretty image Paul - excellent detail. regards Ray

[John Hothersall]

Nice processing and detail resolved, good to see the Master returning to planetary imaging. Forgetting your setup routine after a long absence happens to us all.

John.

[Paul Haese]

Thanks guys.

John funnily I was getting the odd comment from the lads after I said how does this go together again? I thought it sounded a little that's what you get when you give up the faith.

[Phil Hart]

Very nice work Paul. Confirms some of what I saw in a very quick look through Alex' big scope on Saturday night.. particularly the darker shading on the southern half of the planet. Nice!

Phil