Saturn, Feb 19 + moon transits

bird (Anthony Wesley) · #1 20-02-2010, 12:00 PM

A nice surprise this morning, good seeing and a pair of moon transits on Saturn.

Here's a quick 2-frame animation showing Tethys + its shadow entering from the right and also Rhea leaving the disk on the left.

Both moons are approx 0.2" in size and magnitude 13.

cheers, Bird

DavidU (Dave) · #2 20-02-2010, 12:36 PM

Nice one Anthony. Have you done any more improvements on the scope?

bird (Anthony Wesley) · #3 20-02-2010, 01:02 PM

David, I'm still using the 14.5" Royce conical mirror, the next major change will be when the 16" mirror is ready to use, and then after that a new PGR camera, not sure when that will happen..

cheers, Bird

Kevnool (Kev) · #4 20-02-2010, 03:10 PM

Thats a great Saturn Bird.
The Transits look great.
Cheers Kev.

Troy · #5 20-02-2010, 04:56 PM

Nice animation and heaps of detail there. Was the animation created by using the red channel?

bird (Anthony Wesley) · #6 20-02-2010, 05:05 PM

Hi Troy, yes this is only red channel data.

cheers, Bird

bird (Anthony Wesley) · #7 20-02-2010, 05:54 PM

Here is an image from earlier, showing Rhea and its shadow in transit. Tethys is a long way off the disk to the left.

cheers, Bird

Quark (Trevor) · #8 20-02-2010, 06:36 PM

Love the animation Bird,

Tethys and shadow look great as does Rhea.
Have had a very close look in the region of the STrZ for evidence of storm activity but can't detect any.

Love you RGB when I look at it the best description that comes to mind is, simply sublime.

Regards
Trevor

iceman (Mike) · #9 20-02-2010, 06:42 PM

Wow, very nice work Anthony. Looks like you're getting some nice early morning seeing.

bird (Anthony Wesley) · #10 20-02-2010, 07:28 PM

Thanks, yes the seeing was very good for a while this morning, don't know how long it'll keep up...

cheers, Bird

SkyViking (Rolf) · #11 20-02-2010, 07:55 PM

Outstanding images, very impressive. The level of detail is incredible. I especially enjoy the RGB image too.

StephenM (Stephen) · #12 20-02-2010, 10:20 PM

Great stuff Anthony! Good to see some Saturn images coming in again.

Cheers,
Stephen

Lester · #13 21-02-2010, 05:04 PM

Top image and animation Anthony. It's amazing to see the disk of those small moon.

Thanks for the view.

danielsun · #14 21-02-2010, 11:46 PM

Brilliant work as usual Bird.

The transit animation and image is just stunning.

Cheers Daniel.