Mars and Saturn at 11.5 degrees altitude from Aberdeen, UK.

[SAAB340]

The 5th of June I finally got a clear evening in Aberdeen and got to observe and image Mars and Saturn. Though I'll share my first real (I don't count Mars in November last year) attempt at imaging any of them. Considering they were both only at 11.5 degrees altitude now here in Scotland and it is my first attempt I'm surprised at how well it they turned out. Seeing was decent but I've visually seen a lot better on Saturn a few times last year before I got my camera. Never seen Mars in my current scope before but the difference from my Celestron Astromaster 130 I had 2 years ago was massive. Mostly because it was a lot easier to focus. I've upgraded to a dual speed Moonlite focuser on my current scope. It's a good improvement to the stock single speed Sky-Watcher one.

Mars taken 23:39 and Saturn taken at midnight 00:00.

Taken with 12" Sky-Watcher Skyliner GoTo DOB barlowed to about f23.5 with 3xTV Barlow, ASI 120MM-S, Baader RGB filters. Recorded with FireCapture, stacked in AutoStakkert!2, sharpened and combined in Registax6.

For Mars I recorded 3x2000 12ms frames @83FPS. Used gain 50 for R, gain 65 for G and gain 85 for B. Stacked the 3x100 best frames.

For Saturn I recorded 3x2000 35ms frames @28FPS. Used gain 95 for all. Stacked the 3x100 best frames.

Being fairly new to imaging and processing I wonder what you guys think?

[orion25]

Amazing work! Especially considering the low altitude. Thanks for sharing! Wow! 

[Pete Presland]

Two very nicely captured images, the Mars is particularly good with some excellent detail. The Saturn also is a fine image and might benefit from an RGB align maybe, as it looks a little off colour to me, this can be done in Reg6.

[SAAB340]

1 hour ago, bunnygod1 said:

Two very nicely captured images, the Mars is particularly good with some excellent detail. The Saturn also is a fine image and might benefit from an RGB align maybe, as it looks a little off colour to me, this can be done in Reg6.

Thanks,

It's been RGB alligned the best I can in Reg6. The different colors are slightly different sizes. Due to the low altitude I think. Or is it due to my poor aligning and stacking maybe? It's the same on the Mars image but it doesn't show as much.

[Space Cowboy]

Remarkable Mars at that alt! Don't be shy with capture duration. Both Mars & Saturn can easily take 6 mins of video before any rotational issues kick in. With more frames to stack you will have a smoother result.  The Saturn image would benefit some colour noise reduction (Image analyser works well for that).

[laudropb]

Very nice images especially given the conditions.

[Aussie Dave]

You're doing something right with your processing SABB, very good detail in Mars, Saturn's nice too.

[si@nite]

Nice shots, some great detail especially on the mars capture!

[Grotemobile]

I will second the Mars capture. Very good

[Alan]

Excellent images especially at such a low altitude, thought it was bad enough here at 14 degrees !  Second Stuart's point about imaging for longer due to their slow rotation but you may also want to try stacking 500 frames or more from each colour from this capture as 100 from 2000 would normally be far to few. 

[KE400]

Some nice images you got there, very impressive. Like the majority I like the Mars too, the detail is great.

Congrats

[astroman001]

Pretty good effort from that far north.

Peter

[Jeff-Colorado]

Amazing images for so low on the horizon. Nice.