Saturn on Saturday night

iceman (Mike) · #1 11-04-2005, 10:10 AM

Hi guys.

Although we were at the mini star party for dark sky feasts, I couldn't help but take advantage of Louie's 4" Tak FS102 on a vixen mount to do some planetary imaging.

It was early in the evening when this was taken, around 6:30-7:00pm.

Details:
- 4" Tak FS102 (thanks Louie)
- 2.5x Powermate (thanks John) giving a FL of 2000 mm
- Seeing: Good to very good
- 5 fps, 0 gamma, 90-95% saturation, 1/25s exposure, no gain

We had to focus by hand, as we didn't have a hartman mask available.

The one in the left was processed in registax/PS, and the one on the right was processed in registax/AstraImage.

Both were resized 2x to up the image scale.

Comments welcome.

h0ughy (David) · #2 11-04-2005, 01:36 PM

nice pics. Equatorial definately has advantages over alt az, even for quick shots like those used on the planets.

Houghy

rumples riot · #3 11-04-2005, 01:57 PM

Nice Mike, interesting to see the shadow of the planet on the rings. Keep up the good work.

atalas · #4 11-04-2005, 03:00 PM

Nice work again IceMan ,good detail!

Louie

ving (David) · #5 11-04-2005, 03:23 PM

excellent mike. excellent

gbeal · #6 11-04-2005, 05:42 PM

Good work Mike, full credit to the Louie though. Soon everyone will want a Tak. If anything perhaps the right hand image looks a bit over cooked. Definitely easier not on a dob huh?

[1ponders] (Paul) · #7 11-04-2005, 07:02 PM

That's excellent, especially considering how low in the sky it is now for shooting. Louie, when were you thinking of moving to Queensland. Saturns up higher and longer here

iceman (Mike) · #8 12-04-2005, 07:40 AM

Quote:

Definitely easier not on a dob huh?

Slightly Gary, slightly

Nice to be able to change settings, focus etc all the while the image just stays put! Gives more time to just "get it right".

Focusing by hand on that cruddy Tak focuser wasn't easy though.. I mean why would they put a stiff rack n pinion focuser on an expensive OTA?

Anyway thanks for the feedback guys.