Saturn 26 May

[Stub Mandrel]

I did an experiment with Registax and Astra (se beginner's topic) and Astra won the vote. The suggestion was that more frames would have been better, so I used the best four rather than best two videos for ~ 4800 frames and stacked 50%. This let me use much less aggressive processing, so less noisy.

I'm now quite pleased with this, which I think is getting close to what I can get as my best with my location, equipment and level of experience.

[laudropb]

Good photo. Well done

[Grotemobile]

Another well done here

as well.

Steve

[VikkiFord]

That's a cracking picture, well caught.

[Space Cowboy]

Good job! Is this taken with the lifecam? If you could get hold of a mono cam and a IR 742 filter that would make a big difference on faint Saturn.

[Pete Presland]

Very nicely done, not an easy target.

[christhebrit]

Very nice image :-)

[Stub Mandrel]

Good job! Is this taken with the lifecam? If you could get hold of a mono cam and a IR 742 filter that would make a big difference on faint Saturn.

Yes the lifecam. That's an interesting comment - as a stopgap do you think I might get better results if I didn't use an IR filter? The one I have made a big improvement for Jupiter and the moon so I left it on for Saturn.

Could I use the filter to create a luminance file and stack that with RGB data for colour?

Very nicely done, not an easy target.

Thanks all. Certainly not easy to set up for! I've found ONE place in the front garden where:

• All street lights are hidden by trees
• I can just find polaris over the next door neighbours bay extension for polar aligning (which is much easier now I've realised I'm at 53 degrees not 52)
• The scope isn't visible from the road
• I can see Saturn 30-40 minutes over the neighbours trees before it reaches zenith.

It's really annoying as I can stand at the end of the drive and see it from about 11:30, but I have to shield my eyes from a street light.

[astroman001]

Well done, nice image.

Peter