Saturn 2008 December 07

[darditti]

These images have S at top. Titan appears preceding Saturn just N of the ring plane. Dione is visible transiting just N of the ring plane, and its shadow appears on the disk preceding. A clear spot is present in the STrZ on the CM at III=312, and a fainter spot is visible in the SEBZ. In the high-contrast red image there may be some genuine finer detail as well: condensations on the NEB and waves or projections on the SEB N edge, but one cannot be sure without a time sequence.

David

[dweller25]

Fantastic - well done :hello1:

[Sam]

Wow, the banding is brilliant!

[neil phillips]

Good Stuff David, Very interesting seeing the transit, its not something ive seen a lot. The cassini on the ring tips is the most obviouse ive seen in any image so far at this tilt. Certainly very hard to image.

[LaVey]

excellent images, such clear banding.. I've not had a look at Saturn for ages, must get back out to have a squiz

[Doc]

I love seeing transits they are so awesome.

Well done for capturing this one.

[johnh]

Amazing that the red channel reveals so much, the best saturn I've seen so far.

[tom.yates]

Very nice David

[Stephen Green]

Brilliant images David

Stephen

[CELESCOPE]

Lovely work David , very well done indeed and a pleasure to look at

Rog

[darditti]

Thanks all for your appreciation, as it was freezing that morning!

Yes, the red channel always contains the most detail on Saturn, and the blue the least.

The other thing to point out about these images is that the disk of Titan is resolved. It is much larger than the shadow of Dione, and appears orange in the RGB, which is its real colour, due to the organic smog. Also there may be a hint of its limb darkening in the high-contrast image.

David

[jamesFSO]

David,

One of the best Saturns i've seen so far. Hope to try myself this/next week if we get a clear night. Haven't used by DMK Camera yet.

JJ

[RobH]

Top work David, a great Saturn and amazing to have captured the colour of Titan

Cheers

Rob

[narrowbandpaul]

very good.

also very interesting to see the marked difference in detail and clarity as you go from B-G-R....hence why planetary guys use the NIR

rayleigh scattering at its best

how was the seeing overall?

paul

[darditti]

I haven't found the NIR particularly efficacious on Saturn. The signal is weak, so you have to go to longer exposures, so, in fact, I find the r filter tends to give a better result. On Jupiter, particularly when it is low, IR is very good, just because the surface brightness is so much higher.[br]

Seeing was average on this occasion. I took two AVIs in each colour and used the better ones.[br]

Seeing is usually poor in the winter. [br]

David

[narrowbandpaul]

i took a spectrum of saturn covering the visible to NIR....I think there was a large absorption from CH4 at 840nm ish....right were the peak response of the NIR filters is....

[Planet Guy]

Wow, that's nice Saturn, the detail in the bands is really good.

Well done.