Seeing in Brisbane was pretty good on the 19th and the sky was clear for the time being at least but I had to go to night shift I left the 12" Dobsonian set up until the very last minute to get Saturn as high in the sky as possible.
With about 4500 frames with the EOS 600D video set to Faithful picture style, with saturation maxed and contrast minimised (to catch the C ring, which seems to be helped by the Seeliger effect), along with a 5x Powermate and 2x Barlow I managed to get this image. I've left it at original capture size. I am normally heavy handed with processing so I've tried to ease off for this one. Manually tracked as I find it easier to keep it in the frame that way than correcting the tracking when needed.
Also attached is an image recorded 3 minutes earlier in Landscape Picture Style, heavily processed to bring out activity in the North Equatorial Belt (NEB).
Thanks for looking and feel free to edit it if you like ,
Great work, Tom! I was also observing the incredible views of Saturn and Mars through my 10" Skywatcher on the 19th... and wondering whether you were out there capturing it.
I echo Trevor's sentiments - Fantastic DSLR work Tom! Correct about the Seeliger effect helping us out right now, although 2 nights ago I noticed this is gradually lessening; according to my capture histogram.
What a massive image scale Tom. Kudos for hand tracking too. Been there done that with my first 10" dob so I know how finicky it is.
Great work. Looks like we're having another clear one tonight too.
Thankyou everyone for your comments. It definitely was a great opportunity to push the system to the limits. I'd like to bring out more contrast in the bands but I find doing so loses the C Ring. I've attached a copy of the original but distorted to display the rings as circular, and a rough mockup of the best quality parts of the ring rotated.
Wow Tom – the title did warn me about a “big Saturn” but I guess I just wasn’t expecting to be smacked in the face by a GIANT Saturn. Fantastic work, you’ve really set the bar high with this series.
Thanks Dennis OK, I ran the image through WinJUPOS and got a northern polar projection which I put in the middle of the rings mockup with an artistically added shadow on the rings.
Yes, top stuff Tom. Wonderful images and fantastic scale. We're all going to want to run off and buy Goto Dobs the way you're going with your planetary work lately!
At the risk of being yelled down I want to make the following comment. Yes big is nice but I think this image would look better at 70% of the current size. There is a lot of noise on the planet at the current size. At 70% this image really shines. Nice work for DSLR stuff anyway.
No risk of being yelled down here Paul - your comment about size and noise is quite true. I've been struggling with sharpness artefacts/noise vs image detail/colour and size for this image and left it big as I didn't want to lose ring detail in the resize and sharpen. Big isn't always best - most likely true in this image- and maybe I need to take a step back (literally) as I try to improve on it.
I left the 12" Dobsonian set up until the very last minute to get Saturn as high in the sky as possible. 
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... It's your best, I believe it.
What a massive image scale Tom. Kudos for hand tracking too. Been there done that with my first 10" dob so I know how finicky it is. 
... nice ' big ' shot .. great detail in the rings.
