Saturn - 08.01.17 0300UTC - Including North Polar Projection with Hexagon

[Quaternion]

Excellent seeing enabled me to capture my sharpest image yet of Saturn on Aug 1st.  You can clearly see the A, B, and C rings, Cassini's Division, a hint of Encke's gap, cloud bands on the planet, and the shadow of Saturn on its rings.  I also managed to resolve the odd hexagon shaped storm on the North Pole, which was first imaged by the Voyager spacecraft in 1981. I made a polar projection plot from the data, with some WinJupos help from Kokatha Man, so you can sort of look down on North Pole to get a better view of the Hexagon... maybe that's where the Saturnian military headquarters is located ?

I've also included a shot of my Orion XT10in Dob, a.k.a. "The Cloudmaker", riding on my home made EQ platform, a.k.a. "The Sky Slower" ?

[Victor Boesen]

Wow! Saturn is still too low in the sky here in Denmark, so I'll have to wait 5-10 years to get better observations of the ringed planet.

Very nice picture! Victor Boesen.

[Quaternion]

Thanks.  It was at 29deg here in Virginia, USA.  However, I have never seen the Northern Lights ...

[Stub Mandrel]

Not fair! Saturn is always low here when the hexagon is on top :-(

Excellent pictures, you must be chuffed.

[Victor Boesen]

5 hours ago, Quaternion said:

I have never seen the Northern Lights ...

Well me neither!?

[Pete Presland]

Fabulous set of images.

[MarsG76]

Fantastic images... you definitely had some crisp seeing conditions... well done.

 

[Tyson M]

Love the polar projection. Great images. 

[Quaternion]

Increased the saturation on Saturn by 67% to improve the color rendition of the ZWO ASI224MC  camera.