Saturn May 18th

[Space Cowboy]

This could be the last Saturn of the season for me and seeing was very mushy. Was not going to bother posting this but as its the only one I've done this month decided to put it up.

Flextube dob, spc900 3x tal+extension= f27. 6 min avi in Sharpcap.Taken at 11.15pm.

[26Left]

I'm just getting used to Saturn and now we're racing away from it.

I'm curious about the bands that you can see on images where the rings pass in front of the planet. The band to the south must be the shadow of the rings. But, there is also a band north of the ring. The rings are illuminated from the north, so I don't think it can be a shadow. I think I saw it visually a few weeks ago, but I'm not certain. Would it be a "surface" feature?

For a while, I thought is was caused by my oversharpening of images (something I'm very guilty of). But, it appears so often that I think it's real.

Cheers,

Tom.

[oldfruit]

Despite the poor seeing, you have still managed to capture a decent image with some detail visible on the disc and cassini visible too, so all in all a good result.

[Space Cowboy]

Cheers guys! As far as I can tell Tom those dark marks are ring shadows...at least thats what I've always thought.

[Clayton]

Nice shot, shame about the seeing Stuart.

It is hard to post stuff that is less than best, but it clearly demonstrates to all that we are all subject to seeing and other sky conditions.

[Adrian]

I'm curious about the bands that you can see on images where the rings pass in front of the planet. The band to the south must be the shadow of the rings. But, there is also a band north of the ring. The rings are illuminated from the north, so I don't think it can be a shadow. I think I saw it visually a few weeks ago, but I'm not certain. Would it be a "surface" feature?

The ring shadow is the thin black line along the rings (above them in this photo; I think south is up in this one) and the planets shadow is on the rings just to the left.

As we are effectively looking from the direction of illumination we can only just see the shadow. It's like taking a flash photo of someone with a flat wall behind - you only see a thin shadow around the person.

All the other markings are cloud bands (like Jupiter has, but with less contrast between them). It just happens that the rings are currently aligned with one of the main cloud bands visible. As the rings open over the next few years this alignment not occur.

Nice photo SB - despite the seeing you've captured some nice detail.

[AztecastroMcJ]

Great result Stuart, nicely processed aswell

there was discussision on bands etc on CN forum

also shows hubble with wavelets

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/4521598/page/11/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1

which is worth posting and viewing again i reckon lol

James

[Space Cowboy]

Thanks again fellas! Tried again last night but much the same obviously this windy weather system is just not cut out for good seeing. This is when a high frame rate dbk cam would be handy. Roll on Jupiter!