Saturn in clean air 15th Jan.....

[beamish]

16" !! OMG! Lk fwd to seeing results with that.

I'll look into your technique next time I'm out and see if I can make use of it cheers. Keep it up tho KM- keeps us all happy and eager

[bish]

I can only repeat all of the above - superb image.

[Ewok]

WOW ! Simply amazing !!!!!!

[spaceboy]

Stupid question! I take it your a big image buff? but did you at any point compare visually through an EP to what the CCD was picking up? I understand a chip is always going to be more sensitive to light than the human eye and your image is a culmination of the best frames but given the great seeing you had at the time how much detail on Saturn were you able to make out by eye??

SPACEBOY

[Kokatha man]

.....I'm a little embarassed to admit that I haven't visually observed Saturn from prior to this current apparition Spaceboy: and it would've had to been quite a sight through the ep last Saturday morning....!

Before I settled on the Flea3 mono camera I allways had the opportunity to visually appraise Saturn before inserting the DBK21 (colour camera) into the barlow for imaging - with a filter wheel where the barlow lens element is screwed into the filter wheel on one side and there is an "ultra-compact" adaptor for the camera the other end, ep insertion isn't terribly practical.....although being an "old-timer' who's obbed for over 50 years I do appreciate visual observing....!

[Rossco72]

A truely great image, lovely colour and well done. If you manage to tweek this at all with better processing then I'm sure it will be something extraordinary

[spaceboy]

.....I'm a little embarassed to admit that I haven't visually observed Saturn from prior to this current apparition Spaceboy: and it would've had to been quite a sight through the ep last Saturday morning....!

Before I settled on the Flea3 mono camera I allways had the opportunity to visually appraise Saturn before inserting the DBK21 (colour camera) into the barlow for imaging - with a filter wheel where the barlow lens element is screwed into the filter wheel on one side and there is an "ultra-compact" adaptor for the camera the other end, ep insertion isn't terribly practical.....although being an "old-timer' who's obbed for over 50 years I do appreciate visual observing....!

I'm still finding my feet so I cannot understand why so many prefer

solely imaging over actually seeing with their own eyes. I'm guessing after 50 years you've seen all the sights and are just progressing further in the hobby. I must admit the simple images I managed to capture with my web cam do give a bit of a buzz when they come out with clear detail so I imagine I wouldn't be able to sleep for several days if I could ever achieve the standard your producing

SPACEBOY

[Nexus 6]

I agree with all the comments above, saves me from typing them all! :)

Thanks for sharing such beauty!

Alan

[Kokatha man]

Thanks Stuart and Alan for your compliments also: Spaceboy.....perhaps there's some general sad commentary in here about our mediated world, but I think that imaging does provide the opportunity to chart/record one's progress in something (AA) I really enjoy, and strive to extract that little bit extra as you build up your experience.....

Having said that, as a professional artist I guess maybe I live as much in the world of sensory perception and response as I do recording/articulating these experiences - which is why I said I'm a bit embarassed about not looking through the ep this apparition: although there is a certain shared joy from sitting in front of the screen with my partner as we try to see how good a focus and how much detail we can discern from the livefeed images.....we can most probably look pretty weird sitting out in the countryside in the dead of night staring at a screen.....but it sure beats "reality" TV shows in the lounge-room for us....!:)

[Nexus 6]

Now I see where you got the artists eye from with this image.

Alan

[Kokatha man]

.....definitely the VERY last images from Saturday week..!:)

But I thought I'd post 'em on SGL as I'd posted a similar image of the storm trail's close-up on CN, and also I've just ran this last planet processing through the wringer.....it may or may not be better than the last one - but in any case it'll be irrelevant as I'm now deleting all the ninox'd bmps etc to reclaim valuable space on my pc (even though I have 3 1Tb hard drives plugged in, and another 2 spare!?!)

The close-up of the storm's "trail" (which now extends just about completely around the planet's disk) shows the "white spots" a little more clearly; these are hot spots of storm activity in this immense maelstrom.

Anyone specifically interested should google "Saturn's White spots" or somesuch.....it is an interesting read and historically has been an aspect of Saturn obbing since at least 1876 when Asaph Hall first used them to determine Saturn's period of rotation.....

[neil phillips]

Lovely Darryl, very tight shot. you Australian guys are being treated to a amazing show by saturn. Man it must be a lot of fun, to be out there getting this kind of quality. The kind of imaging days we all wait and live for. I see your new improved setup is working nicely then.

[Kokatha man]

Thanks Neil, although I'm not too sure that we're getting any front row seats - although I obviously sneaked into one of them for this particular morning's show, and 2 days later it was looking like similar opportunities before the ticket collectors found me and threw me out, just as it seemed the show was about to start....!:)

But we all live in hope, and as I said elsewhere, the next time I'll make sure the scope is sharply collimated and the corrector plate clean (for the 15th I had a really filthy c/plate, and as soon as we saw the livefeed we forgot all about my usual regimen of re-checking collimation.....allways silly with Spica so near and handy for Saturn!

[amyscott]

stunning picture , hope i can capture at least some of the detail you have

well done

amy

xx