Saturn 09/Apr/2011

[firstlight (Tony)]

I was also out last night, but it was a big day yesterday so I didn't uncover the scope until after 22:00 local. The seeing was the best that I have experienced this year, captured at 10 fps, but I don't think I had the gamma set right so the colour is a bit iffy. About 2000 frames.

[von Tom (Tom)]

There is alot of detail in your image Tony, looks great!

Tom

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Those rings look gorgeous.
A bit of a play around in photoshop to fix the back ground colour (it looks very blue to me) and

[firstlight (Tony)]

Thanks Tom and Jeanette.

The night was very good JJJ, Cassini's Division stood out well in the raw capture, and yes it is blue as I was trying the best that I'm able to bring the planet colour to what I THINK is right. I have adjusted the black point and the result is not too unappealing. I have attached the repro, plus the sequence that followed.

[firstlight (Tony)]

Last one for tonight, next in the sequence.

[Quark (Trevor)]

Some nice detail for sure there Tony, CD & "C"ring well resolved and nice storm detail.

The colour thing is most subjective. I have heard many people on various forums argue the case for the colour to be close to what they see at the eyepiece through their scopes. I would suggest that such an approach would be setting our sights extremely low. Planetary imaging has risen to the point where there is absolutely no comparison between the view through an eyepiece, where we rely on the instantaneous arrival of photons to our eyes compared with thousands of frames captured over time at far longer focal lengths than we could ever use an eyepiece at and stacked to create very hi-res images. This is akin to viewing a nice landscape oil painting at several hundred metres or from a position of only a few metres. Our perception of detail and colour will obviously be quite different in these 2 situations. I believe with planetary imaging that we should be aiming for the colour we would get from a space craft approaching the planet or, given the resources available to us, HST or Cassini images, with regards to colour, are much more pertinent than the very much inferior view (comparatively speaking) that we see at the eyepiece of our scopes.

Regards
Trevor

[Matt Wastell (Matt)]

Hi Tony - these are very detailed images - well done!

[firstlight (Tony)]

Thanks Trevor and Matt. I still need to learn how to do better colour balance, but I imagine if I started with better gamma in the first place it would be a different story. Problem is having enough weather to put together enough sessions... Oh, and not have work interfering with my life .

[firstlight (Tony)]

Just processed the next sequence in the session and played around with it in PS CS5. I was a bit heavier handed with the processing this time and I don't know if the colour is what could be considered OK, but there is a lot more detail to be had and the really yellow cast has been removed.

[Quark (Trevor)]

Hi Tony, reckon that work thing can be a real drag, I don't have to worry about that anymore.

The colour in this latest version is looking much better, good job.

Cheers
Trevor

[firstlight (Tony)]

And another, slightly back the other way. I repro'ed the image 2 back and merged it with the last one. Pretty happy with the weekends work