Saturn and Ring Tilt with iPhone

[PeterStudz]

The first image was taken on 29th July 2024 under reasonable seeing. Short 46 sec video, processed in my usually way using all iPhone apps including VideoStack. I’d really like some more detail, especially with banding on the planet, if it’s possible with an iPhone and the simple apps that I’m using. We shall see! Mind, there are some ring details and shadows that you can see visually - I could see them on the night and it illustrates these well eg…

1. The now thin gap between rings and planet.

2. Shadow cast onto the southern hemisphere by the ring going across the planet. Visually it appears stronger, like a line inked onto the planets surface. So some work do do here.

3. Small shadow cast by the planets northern hemisphere onto the ring.

I also created a little collage of Saturn over the years I’ve been observing. 2021 was taken with my old iPhone 12 and just a 20 second video. At the time I was only experimenting and didn’t have any way of processing. In 2022 I didn’t bother taking a video, although I spent enough time observing! Then at the end of 2022 there was VideoStack. 2023 & 2024 with my iPhone 14 Pro. All with my Skywatcher 200p Dob and from my back garden in Southampton. I might go back and re-process 2023 when I have the time as I’m sure that I can now do better.

 

Edited August 16 by PeterStudz

[peanutcol]

These are amazing. Great work.

[scotty1]

These are good

I just looked up Skywatcher 200p  , as I know next to nothing about telescopes 🧐 Are these untracked?  

 

 

Edited September 10 by scotty1

[PeterStudz]

On 11/09/2024 at 00:04, scotty1 said:

These are good

I just looked up Skywatcher 200p  , as I know next to nothing about telescopes 🧐 Are these untracked?  

 

 

Thanks!

The first, Saturn 2021, is untracked. The other two are tracked (sort of). For 2023 & 2024 I used an EQ platform that tracks for visual. There is some drift - doesn’t matter for visual and not designed for astrophotography. For planetary it’s not essential to track, or to track accurately. But some sort of tracking makes it easier to focus and to take longer videos. The stacking software will align the video frames, even if completely untracked.

I’ve kept everything, all processing and editing, on the smartphone/phone apps. Makes it potentially hard for myself but keeps things relatively simple. 

[scotty1]

So the frame stacking software is on Android or I phone? 

[PeterStudz]

12 minutes ago, scotty1 said:

So the frame stacking software is on Android or I phone? 

It’s on an iPhone and called VideoStack. There’s also a companion add called WaveletCam which helps processing post VideoStack. I think that they are iPhone only but I could be mistaken.