Saturn storm in STrZ 12th June

[Quark (Trevor)]

Hi All,

Imaged the storm in the STrZ last night, not long after twilight.
The Jet stream continues to be parked over Broken Hill and high altitude cloud wafted through for the whole capture period.
This made the seeing quite variable from 4 to 6 / 10.

Captured 3 sets of R, G & B avi's, at 15 minute intervals, each channel was a capture of 900 frames. I have attached 3 RGB images with the storm marked and also an animation of those 3 RGB's. The animation demonstrates just how rapidly Saturn is rotating and shows the storms movement over a 30 minute period.

That this storm still appears quite bright and condensed under these conditions is pretty amazing.
This storm is of great scientific interest and is now clearly the second longest lived storm ever recorded on Saturn and if it can survive for another month or so will surpass the record from last years great storm.

Georg's RPWS (Radio & Plasma Wave Science) instrument on the Cassini space craft has recorded more than 200 SED (Saturn Electrostatic Discharge) episodes from this storm since mid January, this compares with 432 SED episodes produced by last years record breaking storm.

This current storm has had many gaps in SED activity, but has always been able to start up again.

The image data is vital to compare with the radio data from the RPWS instrument on Cassini for the scientific analysis of Georg's team.

Due to my local horizon, it involves a palm tree in my neighbors yard, I will only have access to the target longitude on Saturn for a few more weeks.

I realize that the quality of these images is suffering from the early evening capture time and ever decreasing altitude but they are still of scientific and historical significance.

Thanks for looking.
Regards
Trevor

[Liz]

The storm show up well in the animation, well done Trevor

[RB (Andrew)]

Wow, well done Trevor, great captures and love the animation.
I can't believe how dim the rings are now.

Always enjoy your images, thanks for sharing with us.

[iceman (Mike)]

Nice result again Trevor. Have you got any Cassini images of that storm?

[Quark (Trevor)]

Originally Posted by Liz

The storm show up well in the animation, well done Trevor

Thanks very much Liz

Originally Posted by RB

Wow, well done Trevor, great captures and love the animation.
I can't believe how dim the rings are now.

Always enjoy your images, thanks for sharing with us.

Thanks Andrew, the rings are becoming quite dim as they close even further and as the Earth Saturn separation continues to increase.

Originally Posted by iceman

Nice result again Trevor. Have you got any Cassini images of that storm?

Thanks Mike, no I have not seen a Cassini image of this storm.
Last year the Cassini Imaging Team didn't announce the existence of that storm until it had exceeded the old record. Over the seven months of that storm the Cassini cameras only imaged that storm 4 times. In the same period I captured 169 avi's to create RGB's for Georg.

Although Cassini is at Saturn they cannot necessarily image the storm, the orbit of Cassini relative to the position of the storm is one consideration as is whatever the mission planners have already allocated for the cameras to do.

Georg's RPWS instrument is not constrained by the orbit of Cassini or where the cameras are currently aiming as RPWS can see over the horizon. Saturn's atmosphere bends the radio waves that this instrument receives. This radio data detects lightning but provides only a general target region.

This is why amateur data is pivotal to this research, they rely on it to provide accurate positional data and also to show the changing morphology of the storm. Last year, at various stages the main storm broke up into smaller storms, this was detectable on amateur images.

Based on what happened last year I would expect an announcement and Cassini images of this storm, either when it exceeds last years record or when it breaks up, whichever comes first.

[Lester]

Top capture Trevor, the storm shows up nicely.

Your dedication to storm captures on Saturn are "astronomical"

All the best.

[StephenM (Stephen)]

That's another great animation Trevor! Well done.

Cheers,
Stephen

[Quark (Trevor)]

Originally Posted by StephenM

That's another great animation Trevor! Well done.

Cheers,
Stephen

Thanks Stephen, the storm still shows up well in spite of the seeing.

Originally Posted by Lester

Top capture Trevor, the storm shows up nicely.

Your dedication to storm captures on Saturn are "astronomical"

All the best.

Thanks Lester, it does seem to be a bit of an obsession, but I enjoy the challenge.

[BerrieK]

Trevor I always enjoy your storm chasing efforts. I'm often re-amazed at the fact that 'we' can see them (storms on another planet) from here. Amazing. Thanks for sharing them with us.

Kerrie

[Quark (Trevor)]

Thanks Kerrie for you kind words.

I also think it is pretty amazing that amateurs from their back yards can image quite well defined storms on other planets, in the case of Saturn about 1.4 billion km distant, even with quite ordinary seeing.

It really does underline the level of sophistication of the equipment and technology that is widely available to current day amateurs.

[Rob_K]

Originally Posted by Quark

It really does underline the level of sophistication of the equipment and technology that is widely available to current day amateurs.

And more than a modicum of skill on the part of the imager Trevor! Amazing stuff, great animation!

Cheers -