Saturn and 7 Moons (C8 XLT + ADC) - 22 Aug 2023

[Maurizio83]

Hi, I had a some good seeing nights in the last few days with Saturn. Looking through the eyepiece I noticed an interesting configuration of its brightest moons and I tried to add them to the final image.

The image of the planet and the 7 moons derives from two videos taken a few minutes apart with quite different settings given the enormous difference in magnitude between Saturn and the fainter moons.

From left to right we have: Enceladus (+12.0), Mimas (+13.0), Tethys (+10.4), Rhea (+9.8 ), Dione (+10.6), Titan (+8.6, 0.8" diameter), Iapetus (+11.2)

Titan's disk seems to be "real", while the other moons are limited by the resolution of the C8. The 2 fainter moons are barely visible at low monitor brightness, but I tried to keep a noticeable difference between the brightnesses to reflect the large difference in magnitude between the brightest and the faintest moons.

I don't have much experience with Saturn, I tried to keep the image as soft as possible: this makes the Cassini division less sharp but overall it seems more natural to me.

What do you think?

The full resolution image and the detailed shooting/processing info for the two videos are available here:  https://flic.kr/p/2oXDjJf

 

Edited August 25, 2023 by Maurizio83

[Mandy D]

It took me a while to see the right-most one in your image. I had to keep scrolling the screen up and down to see which moved and which were blobs of muck on my screen! Nice work! I plan to go after the Saturnian moons when my 300PDS lands.

[si@nite]

Lovely sharp Saturn & a medley of moons very nicely done Maurizio.

[Kon]

Excellent Saturn. You have got really nice banding on the planet and the rest is not overdone. The moons give it a nice depth.

[morimarty]

Thats superb Maurizio. Beautifully processed and presented thats one to be very proud of.