The Gas Giants at Pre-Dawn

[orion25]

Between Canadian wildfire smoke and oppressive humidity (and a bit of Saharan dust) I managed to image the gas giants at pre-dawn. The seeing was surprisingly good and I was able to get some workable data. I even caught Io transiting Jupiter (white dot on the right of the upper large belt)! Captured with the usual suspects - Orion 180mm Mak, ASI 224mc, Firecapture, post-processing in Registax 6 and Photoshop:

 

 

Saturn is moving edge-on from our perspective, peaking in 2025. I'm particularly pleased with how it came out.

 

Cheers!

Reggie 🤩

Edited July 31, 2023 by orion25
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[Hawksmoor]

Really nice images Reggie! Hope you are keeping well in the hot weather . Have not been able to do any Astronomy here as permanent cloud seems to have settled overhead. Hope to have some holiday soon in Italy where it should be a bit warmer and think astrophotography will have to wait until September when the gas giants will be a bit higher in the sky.

best regards George 

[orion25]

4 hours ago, Hawksmoor said:

Really nice images Reggie! Hope you are keeping well in the hot weather . Have not been able to do any Astronomy here as permanent cloud seems to have settled overhead. Hope to have some holiday soon in Italy where it should be a bit warmer and think astrophotography will have to wait until September when the gas giants will be a bit higher in the sky.

best regards George 

Thanks, George. The heat has been really oppressive here in the States, but some nice nights (and mornings) appear unexpectedly. The Canadian wildfires were not on anybody's radar! The smoke has drifted down as far as my region in the southeastern U.S., but sometimes you get a break if you're an opportunist like me, lol. I saw a clear pre-dawn sky with two brilliant gas giants and rushed to set up my rig before work and voila! 

You and the Mrs. have a blast in Italy!

Cheers!

Reggie

[Pete Presland]

Nicely captured Reggie, interesting to see how the ring tilt has changed since last time i imaged saturn.

[orion25]

2 minutes ago, Pete Presland said:

Nicely captured Reggie, interesting to see how the ring tilt has changed since last time i imaged saturn.

Thanks, Pete. I look forward to some striking edge-on views in 2025!

[Pete Presland]

They were edge on the first time i ever imaged Saturn around 2009/2010.

[orion25]

2 minutes ago, Pete Presland said:

They were edge on the first time i ever imaged Saturn around 2009/2010.

I would love to see them. You can post them in this thread if you like.

[Pete Presland]

Pleasure Reggie. Don't laugh at the quality 🙂 

This was hand tracked on the 12th April 2010. Using a Toucam pro camera and C6 Newtonian i think. I was very much at the beginning of my imaging learning curve. My how things have changed in the past 10-15 years!

[orion25]

2 hours ago, Pete Presland said:

Pleasure Reggie. Don't laugh at the quality 🙂 

This was hand tracked on the 12th April 2010. Using a Toucam pro camera and C6 Newtonian i think. I was very much at the beginning of my imaging learning curve. My how things have changed in the past 10-15 years!

No laughing here, mate. Looks like my early Saturn images. It will be interesting to compare these with the ones you will get when Saturn is edge-on this time around!

[RobertI]

Lovely images Reggie, nicely done. 🙂

[orion25]

2 hours ago, RobertI said:

Lovely images Reggie, nicely done. 🙂

Thanks, Robert! I was fortunate to catch Io making a transit (upper right dot on the top band); the shadow had already transited off the limb.