Saturn 15th May 2013

[asimov (John)]

Well technically it's still my birthday, so happy birthday to me lol. Just lucky really. Caught this in a sucker hole after sitting & waiting for quite some considerable time. Pays to be patient

First (top left) is a 3.5 min capture 2000 stacked second is a 4.5 min capture 2200 stacked.

C11/DBK618 @ F30

[Quark (Trevor)]

Very nice way to finish off your Birthday Asi, a lovely rendition of Saturn.

Cheers
Trevor

[Larryp (Laurie)]

As usual, great work John! Hope you had a great birthday

[U.K.Cowboy (Stuart)]

Cracking images birthday boy!

[icytailmark (Mark)]

happy bday john!!! How you manage to keep saturn on the chip for 4 and a half mins? You must have excellent tracking. I have to recenter mine every couple of mins.

[EricB (Eric)]

Very nice. Happy birthday John.

Eric

[Solar (Ralph Smith)]

On-Ya Johno,
Happy Birhday mate.

[asimov (John)]

Thanks all.

Mark my PA is out so I'm giving the DEC button a jab every 12 seconds to keep it central. Other than that, no problems at all & Autostakkert accepts these small corrections without flinching.

Here's one I just did. Bear in mind I've only processed it for any globe details that might be here & the loss of the C ring is 100% inevitable. You have to stare at it for awhile before anything other than a small amount of noise comes to your attention The hex is well defined as well as some white details present inside it.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

lovely work Asi. regards Ray

[U.K.Cowboy (Stuart)]

Originally Posted by asimov

Thanks all.

Mark my PA is out so I'm giving the DEC button a jab every 12 seconds to keep it central. Other than that, no problems at all & Autostakkert accepts these small corrections without flinching.

Here's one I just did. Bear in mind I've only processed it for any globe details that might be here & the loss of the C ring is 100% inevitable. You have to stare at it for awhile before anything other than a small amount of noise comes to your attention The hex is well defined as well as some white details present inside it.

Yep I have to work the hand control when my personal assistant is away.
Very striking detail on that one John I guess this is where some folk process the rings separately though I've yet to try/figure out that method.

[nandopg]

Hi John and happy birthday!!

It is always a great pleasure to see your images. This sequence is stunning, including the hexagon and all the details on the rings system.
I don't know how do you manage to stack 2000 worthy frames, I never get more than 120 with 75% of quality on AS2!

Double congratulations.

Fernando

[asimov (John)]

Thanks Ray.

Hi Stuart & thanks. The only way I know of is to either throw a mask over the rings (by hand with the mouse) invert, then work on the 2 globe sections, do some ring work as necessary, carefully apply yet another mask to the now hard & very obvious line between globe sections & rings, blur the line out..

Thanks Fernando. A very wise imager once said: "Doesn't hurt to throw in a few blurry ones to make up the numbers"

[U.K.Cowboy (Stuart)]

Originally Posted by asimov

Thanks Ray.

Hi Stuart & thanks. The only way I know of is to either throw a mask over the rings (by hand with the mouse) invert, then work on the 2 globe sections, do some ring work as necessary, carefully apply yet another mask to the now hard & very obvious line between globe sections & rings, blur the line out..

Thanks Fernando. A very wise imager once said: "Doesn't hurt to throw in a few blurry ones to make up the numbers"

Thanks John I might just try that one rainy night.

[asimov (John)]

No worries Stuart. Give it a try. The only thing I do on occasion is mask the rings out, desaturate the rings..The rings should look white, with very little colour. While I've got that mask on, I then invert and lower the midlevels by 6 itts on the 2 globe sections. The biggest problem I see with Saturn is the rings exposed perfectly but then you look at the globe & it appears washed out, lowering the midlevels brings back the details & gives a sense of correct exposure...Naturally if you did this to the image as a whole, you'd lose the C ring!

The hardest part is drawing that damned mask freehand! As long as you are accurate with the mask as you drag across points like ring/globe intersections you're good to go.

EDIT: I should add I haven't bothered applying my masking technique to any of the images in this thread. I should do one up though, just to show the differences..