Saturn 16th Feb

[Lester]

Hi all,

this is the first image from my new location near the sea and the seeing already looks better than it use to be inland. For the seeing to be any good at the old location usually it had to be dead calm. This was taken through jetstream and with wind comming off of the sea.

This image was captured with 14" LX200, DFK at 15fps and 2x barlow.

[iceman (Mike)]

Excellent first up image there Lester, some good colour in the banding.

I didn't know you moved from the farm!

[Dennis]

Oh my goodness, that is a big Saturn! Well done Lester, the colours look very natural and I hope your new location delivers even better seeing in the nights to come!

Cheers

Dennis

[matt]

Well done Lester. Colour looks good and the processing is nicely restrained. Lots of image scale too!

Looks very promising for an image captured in the conditions you describe. Will be very good when you get a night of 7/10 or better seeing, especially with Jupiter season almost upon us....again

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Ahhh, that's nice.

[Quark (Trevor)]

Well done Lester,
Very nice image, love the colour and the banding is very well defined.
An image to be proud of.

Regards
Trevor

[Lester]

Thanks Mike, Dennis, Matt, Jeanette and Trevor for your comments.

Mike we have moved to 6km north of Port Lincoln. Its the first time I have lived off of the farm. Still run the farm with help from 2 of our sons. The old observatory is just an empty shell now.

At the capture time there was 2 satellites close to Saturn, but they don't show up in this image.

[Dennis]

Originally Posted by Lester

At the capture time there was 2 satellites close to Saturn, but they don't show up in this image.

Hi Lester

That is an interesting observation re the 2 “invisible” satellites.

I have also noticed that when using the DMK (mono), I can adjust the Gain, Exposure & Gamma settings to reveal satellites of Saturn yet still retain a reasonable appearance of the features on Saturn’s disc, without “blowing out” the planet.

However, when I use my DBK (colour), in order to reveal the satellites I have to pump everything to almost maximum, resulting in a very noisy image with Saturn glowing like an incandescent light bulb.

Cheers

Dennis

[Lester]

Hmmm, Interesting Dennis. Thanks for that info.

[Hagar (Doug)]

Very nice Lester. Good to hear you have completed your new observatory and moved in OK. Looks like a magnificent vista. It would be hard to go home in the mornings.