Saturn storm April 26

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Most local farmers chose yesterday to burn off stubble, so the air was full of smoke. But the seeing was fair and, despite the Mie scattering and low signal levels, the Saturn images were usable - not perfect, but it looks like the new scope is worth persevering with. Now have to optimise processing, image scale,colour etc. Thanks for looking. Regards Ray

[asimov (John)]

Nice work Ray. Colour balance is nice & looks like the seeing was acceptable. What new scope? Sorry if I'm a bit out of touch, I find it hard to keep track of every imager & associated gear & upgrades.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Thanks John. Guess I could have mentioned what the scope was....nothing fancy, it's a 12 inch GSO Newt Dob - fixed up the worst of the mechanical and thermal shortcomings and put it on an NEQ6. The optics star test quite well and its nice to have some decent light gathering capability. Regards Ray

[Quark (Trevor)]

Looks like quite reasonable data Ray, plenty of storm detail in the region of the head and also the overlap.

I was also out for an attempt at the head but the Skippy Sky forecast for my region of 9/10 was more like 4 to 5/10.

Regards
Trevor

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Hi Trevor. It looked like it should be much better seeing than it was. Frustrating to see some fine detail, but jumping all over the place. AviStack and R6 both tried to stack on the rings, which blurred out almost all storm detail, so went back to R5 with a single stack point. Regards Ray.

[Lester]

Very nice detail in your image Ray. The extra diameter with your new scope will help a lot to increase FPS and resolve detail. All the best.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Thanks Lester. Am really looking forward to trying this system out with some steady air - should be fun. Regards Ray

[Troy]

A very nice image Ray. Top effort

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Thanks very much Troy. Regards Ray

[Clayton]

Wow! Lovely image Ray. Congrats on getting the new scope firing.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Thanks Rob. Seems to take forever to debug a new scope and am nowhere near finished - things that are of no consequence in a Dob can become major issues in an equatorial planetary setup. All part of the fun. Regards Ray

[michaellxv (Michael)]

Nice one Ray. Colours look good and that's a nice long Cassini as well.

[asimov (John)]

I've just basically finished more or less the same project Ray, only I'm utilizing 14" SW DOB optics in a new OTA & riding my black non GOTO EQ6 so I have no doubt there will be bugs to iron out with your setup as well..

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Hi Michael. Thanks for your comment. Regards Ray

Hi John. Your new setup sure sounds quite similar, but bigger of course. Yes, every part of my system has required some form of significant mod, except for the EQ6 - they just seem to keep on working regardless of what you put on them.

regards Ray

[Logieberra (Logan)]

That's a beauty. The extra 2" make quite a difference on the surface detail. Good to know Logie.

[asimov (John)]

No lever arm action problems, Ray? I had to go through my EQ6 with a fine toothed comb to get rid of any backlash in the system. Nothing worse than a Saturn image on screen @ 8000mm plus with a bit of backlash on any axis..

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Hi Logan. Thanks for the comment - every bit of aperture sure helps.

John - new one out of the box and it worked fine at 8m, just lucky maybe? Plenty of lever arm of course, but it handles it OK.

regards Ray

[asimov (John)]

I probably shouldn't have used 'lever arm action' in my last statement but I'm sure you knew what I meant - The amount of backlash I had was quite acceptable with the C11 but not with the length of the F4.5 14" OTA.

Just to remain on topic ;-) it's a very nice image & I'm looking forward to many more in nice seeing from you.