Seeing Saturn In All Its Glory For The First Time

[Armsoft]

What can I say!!! OMG!!!! I`ve actually seen it with my own eyes!!!

Thanks to the advice given to me on my Jump Start Thread -

http://stargazerslounge.com/beginners-help-advice/104128-jump-starter-advice.html

I have this evening been able to see a Planet during a viewing session with my 6SE, the mighty Saturn, and oh what a sight, I will never forget this night.

Thankyou so much for the help and advice, especially from Demonperformer, Psychobilly, brantuk & Cornelius Varley, you guys are the tops.

I was seriously beginning to wonder if I would ever be able to use my scope to see anything other than the moon, but with your help I`ve seen a planet for the first time (I got so excited I dragged my wife out to see it too (she was not that excited?)

I can now begin to really look forward to my viewing sessions, and its all thanks to you guys on this Forum.

Next up, I want to learn how to use my Neximage CCD imager so that I can capture it on film!

Thanks once again everyone, very much appreciated.

Mark

[brantuk]

It certainly is an amazing sight first time round and never fails to amaze on subsequent observations. I can see you have the same kick that I had when I first saw it. Pleased for ya mate

[JamesM]

Hi Mark,

As a new person to this subject I can certainly relate to your excitement at seeing this planet 'in the flesh' as it were.

I can still remember that magical night. I was taking part in a simple university course on astronomy (one evening a week) when Steve the tutor said, "For the past couple of weeks we have been studying many different constellations but as it's clear outside tonight, I'm going to show you something a bit extra after the class. You have to remember, that our regular exploration of the night's sky was via a small inflatable planetarium, which as adults, represented quite a struggle to actually get in to it (...let alone get back out ) so the promise of something extra was going to have to be pretty damn good to top the fun we were having climbing around in our tiny planetarium.

Of course it was, and it was made more interesting when Steve requested that after viewing the mystery 'object' we were to keep quiet until everyone had seen it. I was fortunate to be the first person to put my eye to the scope and WOW!!!! I was also lucky enough to see Saturn during a moment of atmospheric stillness and you could of heard my jaw drop at a 100 yards. I was positively squealling inside with excitement and it really did take a massive effort to remain quiet and unemotional so as to not give a clue to the others who had yet to see what I had just seen.

These moments will always be absolutely priceless no matter what age you are and Saturn still makes me smile every single time I see it. Mark I know how you feel! :hello2:

Clear skies

James

[Demonperformer]

Next up, I want to learn how to use my Neximage CCD imager so that I can capture it on film!

Glad we could help.

Have a look at http://stargazerslounge.com/beginners-help-advice/104180-celestron-neximage-help.html#post1435427 for some guidelines on capturing Saturn with neximager.

Recommended software: Sharpcap from http://stargazerslounge.com/diy-astronomer/98474-new-webcam-capture-software-2.html

Enjoy

[red dwalf]

Saturn is amazing to image but it`s hard to get lots of detail i.e. bands and colour and so one, but Jupiter is far more inpressive as regards to bands that appear and size and colours, and as it`s starting to appear in our night sky again i can`t want to try again on it this year.

just a word of advice, imaging can be very addictive and expensive, when you get a nice image on the nexcam you will want more !

[red dwalf]

just to add the first time i looked at Saturn i woke the wife up at 1 in the morning to come and have a look, see was not impressed at being woken but but changed her mind when see saw it. an amazing sight it`s like looking through a window into another dimension

[Brendan of Borg]

Great post!!

[abumuhannadh]

Hi Mark,

As a new person to this subject I can certainly relate to your excitement at seeing this planet 'in the flesh' as it were.

I can still remember that magical night. I was taking part in a simple university course on astronomy (one evening a week) when Steve the tutor said, "For the past couple of weeks we have been studying many different constellations but as it's clear outside tonight, I'm going to show you something a bit extra after the class. You have to remember, that our regular exploration of the night's sky was via a small inflatable planetarium, which as adults, represented quite a struggle to actually get in to it (...let alone get back out ) so the promise of something extra was going to have to be pretty damn good to top the fun we were having climbing around in our tiny planetarium.

Of course it was, and it was made more interesting when Steve requested that after viewing the mystery 'object' we were to keep quiet until everyone had seen it. I was fortunate to be the first person to put my eye to the scope and WOW!!!! I was also lucky enough to see Saturn during a moment of atmospheric stillness and you could of heard my jaw drop at a 100 yards. I was positively squealling inside with excitement and it really did take a massive effort to remain quiet and unemotional so as to not give a clue to the others who had yet to see what I had just seen.

These moments will always be absolutely priceless no matter what age you are and Saturn still makes me smile every single time I see it. Mark I know how you feel!

Clear skies

James

like a fantastic story. this made my day

[PaulG]

What can I say!!! OMG!!!! I`ve actually seen it with my own eyes!!!

Mark

Lol ~ Amazing sight isn't it, it took my over 45 years to point my mince pies towards Saturn.

For me it's become one of those "must do this in my life time" achievements.

Paul

[Digz]

Its a beautiful feeling, isn't it! That sense of self realisation that the things we see in magazines are actually out there and you have been lucky enough to see it with your own eyes, not second hand as a glossy photo in a magazine.

I remember my first sighting of Saturn. It was on a cheap 4" reflector on a wobbly stand about a year and half ago and although the view wasn't perfect I could make out the 'ears'

Its that feeling that has spurred me on recently to upgrade my kit and delve into the realms of astrophotography.

Great post and clear skies :-)

[Joe105]

Thats really wonderful. I'm sooooo pleased for you.

Saturn remains my all time favourite.I never tire of looking at it.

Its just magical.

I wish you every success in your endeavors.

[Shane]

Awesome!!!

(I got so excited I dragged my wife out to see it too (she was not that excited?)

lol, thats sounds familiar

[Armsoft]

Trying to take the `Next Giant Leap for mankind (well for me anyway)` tonight

I`m setting up the NexImage CCD to try and capture Saturn on my laptop (wish me luck, I`m going to need a lot of it).

Spent most of today genning up on the settings, so fingers crossed.

Mark

[Armsoft]

Ok, the house has got to be demolished!! its in the way of me seeing saturn tonight!

Ok, my first attempt at imaging has produced a picture of the moon (or an area of it), obviously not the best picture of the moon that your ever likely to see, but as its my first I`m quite proud of it.

Moon Photo.bmp

[Shane]

Nice one Armsoft, nice picture, did you use the 4se or the 6se?

[Armsoft]

I used the 6SE with NexImage

Innitially I used a 2x Barlow but that seemed to take me in too close, so the avi came from the neximage straight onto the scope.

Registax is not the easiest software to use 1st time round (infact I`m not actually sure how I managed to produce the picture), I`m wondering if the fact that it had to stack 3001 frames had anything to do with it??

Looks like tonight is going to be clear again, so I`m going to re-sight the scope to overcome the `House` issue (according to my wife `Demolition` is not an option:D) and then have another go at capturing Saturn. Fingers Crossed

Mark

Nice one Armsoft, nice picture, did you use the 4se or the 6se?

[Digz]

I look forward to seeing the results!!

[Armsoft]

Ok, 2nd night of reasonable seeing conditions in a row.

Managed to re-position the scope into a darker area in the garden with no obstructions and managed a bit of NexImage capture of Saturn.

I`ve uploaded a couple of pictures that were taken from the AVIs and processed through RegiStax (I`m still not used to using it yet) and would welcome any advice/suggestions on where I`m going wrong with this.

The AVIs were recorded straight through the imager with no Barlows used (I was having problems every time I put the Barlow inline I lost the view of Saturn), I guess if I can master using the Barlow I should be able to get a closer, more detailed view?

Thanks in advance

Mark

saturn 2 Photo.bmp

saturn 3 Photo.bmp

[abumuhannadh]

mind if i post the images to make it visible?

[Armsoft]

Thats a great help, how do you do that?

Mark

[abumuhannadh]

just take the picture link and paste it between

or just click the "insert image" button on top of the text box and paste the link of the image. (it should end with a .jpg .bmp etc)

[Armsoft]

just take the picture link and paste it between

or just click the "insert image" button on top of the text box and paste the link of the image. (it should end with a .jpg .bmp etc)

I`m uploading the files from my hard drive and not hosting them online, so I don`t have a http address to link them from.

Any advice on a way forward with this.

Thanks

Mark

[abumuhannadh]

i don't upload it here, i upload my images in an account i made in Flickr. then i take the link from there and post it here.

[abumuhannadh]

and i just took the links of your images right from this forum to display them

[Armsoft]

1st attempt at posting image rather than uploading.

Photo taken this evening 20/05/2010 through Nexstar 6SE using NexImge