Recent Saturns...

[Kokatha man]

Although we've captured some nice Saturn images over the last couple of months or so I don't think I've posted any on SGL for quite sometime.....although we've been unable to capture anything at all for about 3-4 weeks due to the weather as Winter has set in down in South Oz.

More on a whim rather than anything re the weather forecasts, even our beloved Murray Mallee was engulfed in clouds at the start of this current week except for a tiny eye-shaped region showing semi-transparent skies.....I'd say from memory it looked like the prediction of a few square kilometres of this in an area roughly 10000square kms.....a mere dot and with the likelihood it was going to be a "weather mirage" anyway..!

So we travelled across the Western Mallee, crossed the mighty Murray River and drove up to the old river port of Swan Reach where this predicted area was supposed to be.....not really much further than to our "normal" imaging site but about 30 kms East and as I said, on the other side of the river.

Arrived well after dark, set the scope up and went for a walk through the old town and down to the river bank.....on turning to go back to the caravan we looked up and were more than mildly surprised to see that the wall-to-wall clouds that had been there all the way from home and when we'd arrived and setup had suddenly opened up.....by the time we got back to the scope and van the sky was crystal clear and but for a bit of mist that must've been coming off the river which did interfere a bit the seeing looked quite good when collimating.

Not fantastic seeing but quite decent tbh.....here's the results so far with some more processing for that night and the next (which was also supposed to have total cloud coverage.)

[theo]

Beautiful images Darryl. Really wish we had more altitude with Saturn here in the UK, but I suppose we get to have our fun with Jupiter:-)

Pete

[Stargazer Jack]

Wow, they are amazing!

[Naemeth]

Absolutely beautiful! The seeing looks good, and I love the cropped monochrome animation .

[Grotemobile]

They are very, very, sharp images.I think a

lot of us, would love to get something like this.

Colour always seem to look better than mono.

Very good picts

Steve.

[Alan]

Look like your excursion paid off Darryl, more great images.

[si@nite]

Stunning Darryl fantastic work!

[DrRobin]

Superb detail in the rings and on the planet. I am guessing Saturn's altitude helps a bit, but wow they are good.

Robin

[Ewan]

Teriffic captures there Darryl, is that a 'little' white storm dot on the animated Gif file on the lower right ?

I was thinking we hadn't seen much from you for a while glad you posted some great images to compare to once again.

[Kokatha man]

Thanks very much for the kind comments Pete, Jack, Naemeth, Steve, Alan, Simon, Robin & Ewan...Pat and I appreciate the generous feedback!

There's actually a couple of those bright spots in the images (well, 2 that are very evident) and I don't think "little" would be the most accurate description of them Ewan..!

It's a common comment but I think there really is a better rgb set which I'm processing atm.....if not better very near or equal to the one at the start (ie, the "classic" - not the WinJupos composite) and at the very least will make for a very nice rgb animation of these 2 sets and display the movement of that largest bright spot across the globe of Saturn: will post later on today perhaps!

[Steve Ward]

Great work sir. . .

[SnakeyJ]

Thanks Daryl for these and all the inspirational shots this year - fantastic results with this camera and some excellent tips and tricks thrown in for good measure. Hope the seeing steadies and you can get another fine run to round the year off on Saturn.