Saturn & Mars 05/08/18

[Yawning Angel]

Saturday the 5th, both Saturn and Mars finally presented themselves in my southern 'window', and the weather for once was favourable. I got set up, with time to spare while Saturn was getting ready to enter the stage from behind the curtain of next doors house.

Now, when you set up a telescope on your driveway, people notice. Queue the first question of the evening -

 "Is that a telescope?"

Much as the sarcastic answer was bubbling away trying to escape my mouth, we had a nice chat about Saturn and Mars for 25 minutes. Meanwhile, unnoticed, a bank of cloud rolled in to neatly cover the 10 degrees of southern horizon I needed. There was (internal) swearing!

Never mind, a cup of tea later and a glimmer started to show through clear bands in the sneaky clouds - Aha, we might be ok after all! And we were - plagued a little by clouds, wobbly seeing, street light and curious dog walkers I managed my first time both observing and imaging these gems of the night sky

Celestron C8 / AVX mount, ZWO ASI120mc-s, ZWO ADC (first light - nice kit!). Stacked 15% from around 5000 frames each in Autostakkert 3, Wavelets to taste in Registax and a dash of PS

 

and a shot of mars 'down the barrel' - streetlights and all

[Rob]

Great report. This 'out in the street' has been mine, and I'm sure many others setup stage for Mars this year!. I ended up moving the rig three times down the close to keep visuals.

We are quite new to the area also.. what people must think!.. lol Good fun though

[Yawning Angel]

At the end of my time with Saturn, it got eaten!!

 

[morimarty]

Two very good images of Mars & Saturn despite the interuptions you had to endear.

[Yawning Angel]

Thanks Martyn. The passersby were all 100% pleasant and curious. I even had a taxi driver pull up haha.

[Pete Presland]

Very nicely captured.