A benchmark

[geoff_k]

Clear night last night, but couldn't nail the focus on Saturn last night for some reason. Don't think seeing was quite as good as it seemed to be.

Before I packed up, I tried to capture some of Saturns moons at prime focus by over-exposing the planet. My record is seven, and although I didn't get that many last night, using the ATIK camera I picked up a faint star nearby. This goes by the snappy name of USNO HJ0925473+163130 and is magnitude 13.6.

Nothing special about that but it is the faintest object that I have definitely been able to identify when imaging. I'm sure I've captured some fainter ones in my few DSO images, but it isn't always easy to identify them individually. I thought it was a useful benchmark especially when it was a moonlit night. Should be able to go much deeper given the right conditions.

As for the rest I grabbed (from the bottom up) Enceladus, Dione, Iapetus, Tethys, Rhea and Titan. The other star shown is HIP46232

[russ]

Impressive stuff Geoff. Never tried myself to image all the moons. Must give it a try.

btw the seeing last night was not good. I tried to image last night but niether scope would focus. Only took 2 avis and gave up. Strangely the visual view was pretty good right upto 240x.

Russ

[geoff_k]

Rus

Thanks for that, you were right. The view through the scope looked very promising but the camera never lies.

My best effort with the moons (7 including Mimas) was last year.

Geoff

[CELESCOPE]

nice one Geoff like that mate , yes i know what you mean , i think i got myself in a two and eight the night before last ,Saturn was awful could not focus , thats why i done a collimation on the scope , but i dont think it was far out , its not been good up there lately for some reason, looks to be ok , but imaging is carp

Rog

[lunator]

Hi Geoff

Thats an interesting pic.

I spent some time on Saturn and caught 5 Moons visually.

I did a small sketch as the way the 3 Moons to the North West made a line was an interesting sight.

Cheers

Ian