With the forecast predicting clear skies for the next few days, I took the opportunity to get up early this morning and image Saturn - my first image for this Saturn season.
It's also my first planetary image in what feels like months (I think it literally has been months), so I eased back into it with a shorter focal length than normal - also partly because Saturn is so dim and so low that it wouldn't be likely to support high-resolution just yet.
The seeing was quite acceptable given the low altitude, reminds me why I love imaging in the early mornings. It was almost a non-event, as clouds greeted me when I first went outside at 4:40am. I waited them out until about 5:10am when I was just starting to pack up, when they finally started clearing. I captured 1 complete run, and then packed up as it was time to get ready for work. Clouds came back shortly after, so I was lucky to get any image at all.
With the rings closing up this year, it's really going to be a challenge to capture any ring detail like the Cassini Division - and it's much fainter than normal too.
12" Newt on EQ6, with DMK21AU04 + 2x barlow. 15fps for 1 minute per channel. ~85 frames stacked in each channel.
Quite happy with the outcome for the first of the season. Hopefully more to come in the following days and weeks.
Its been a while since I've seen Saturn, so I was surprized to see how much the rings had closed up. The other first impression was it must be a long way away since your image scale was smaller than usual, but then I read that you were only using the 2x barlow. Good to see saturn coming back...
Unfortunately for me, I have quite a wait on my hands, My house obscures my view to the east/north east, I cant see it till its above 28°, and even then, I'd be imaging maybe 1ft above the roof of the house.... I might have a month or so before I can get stuck into saturn...
. Good to see saturn coming back...
