Saturn 21st March

[Edwin Pottillius]

Those are very nice images. Especially your last one.

[neil phillips]

first i would experiment with the extra time and see how much noise you can reduce, might be worth slowing the camera down to lower noise, but unless seeing is good that will likely fail too. if none of this works, and i reckon noise is your worst problem, as i can clearly see focus and the optical issues are not a problem here. if you can significantly reduce the noise, trying more frames ( they look way to noisy Karlo )

though im stacking 5000 with likely a better histo than you. which really shows you how far away in a noise sense you currently are. I think you have answered your own question i am indeed at about f20. though ive posted a few around f25 ish ? but that is pushing it with a 245mm primary and dmk at 1/30th secs exposure 30 fps. I think you should do similar drop down to around f20. the extra light and control will work wonders, the colours will come out. the detail will come out, you will likely be able to up scale a bit and get a far better quality shot at about the same actual noisy washed out scale yourt presently working with. try the experiments first 6 min captures stack more frames. maybe slow the camera down. i think your best option will be lowering the focal length. with all these experiments im betting you will be saying to me. i should have done that earlier. thats not to say you wont or cant improve the f30 stuff, i reckon you can, and mentioned the way ( you know all this yourself ) but in the end ill lay money a good night at f20 will blow these shots sideways. experiment time will tell. but the conclusion wont happen untill all experiments are tried. But im sure your aware ive been doing them for two months now. and for a 10" f20ish is optimal for colour, slightly higher for just red under good trans. theres your answer right there. im all for high scale. but when it aint working, well it aint working. on Mars last year with spc 900 nc ( kens ) i was routinly shooting with a 2x celestron combined with 3x TV barlow. but that was bright Mars this is DIM saturn. when you get this right, your saturns are going to rock. i can see that already. go to it karlo, cant wait to see them

[beamish]

Cheers Neil for the encouraging words it's much appreciated,-I think you're right in many ways.I just need to suss out a way of dropping to F20 ? As the scope is already F15, is there such a thing as a 1.5x /1.3x Barlow ?

If I shoot native/prime focus the image plus pixel size will just kill it. Peter's idea of 6mins is the next step and give the utterly poor L data and dim IR 742 , that would open up the way for a lot more frames.

I'm hoping to try the 618 modded SPC too at prime to see if tat would help as opposed to the Lu070, but a Basler is deffo on my shopping list-can't afford a Flea

good data will always be the key but I do have to remind myself, inspite of the optical quality of my scope it's still only 7" !!

[neil phillips]

Proplem with 618 spc, will be low frame rate, but i suppose your at lower than 30 fps already with LU070. So will be interesting. How much is the Basler in the Uk Karlo ? dropping the lum sounds like a good idea, and the IR will be well dim, so yes i agree concentrate on the RGBs and and def try a 6 min red Karlo. the noise will go a lot with a few thousand frames to stack

[beamish]

Well the last lot was taken at 12fps so dropping to 10 won't kill me but at least I should get better Histo's with the increased sensitivity. Also just figured a way of getting F22

PS PM sent

[neil phillips]

Forgot to say yes there are 1.5x barlows, and a tube could be used to extend focal length at prime, not sure how long it would have to be though. Going to messages