Saturn and Tethys

[JY]

Hi,

17 March night was quite clear and I spent a couple of hours imaging Saturn from Yio Chu Kang.

Here is Saturn, its storm in the South Transition Zone (clear spot) and Tethys.



Here is an animation from 9:40pm to 23:40 pm showing the rotation of Saturn, rotation of Tethys and Titan appearing in the last frame.
Mimas and Enceladus are very faint ... try and see them !
(luminance of the moons have been increased to make them visible ... barely ... see just under the rings left and right)



Toucam / LX200R 10" / 3x Barlow

Cheers

JY

[wucheeyiun]

Great stuff...can even identify the Encke division....at the turning point of the Rings

[jermng]

My goodness!! My image of Saturn on Mon night was nowhere near this!

[VinSnr]

bro..share your equipments and method!

[JY]

Thanks !

Vin, glad to share:

1) Set-up, in order of importance:

- Barlow: Televue Barlow x3 for Jupiter, Saturn and x5 for Mars.
The improvement from my Meade x2 days is huge.
- LX200R10" tube well collimated (can still be improved)
- Toucam: cheap and simple.
- Mach1 mount: excellent mount but not important for planet imaging. Any decent mount can do.

2) Camera settings:
- take avi (using iris - free software) of minimum 3000 frames.
- Gain at 50% (75% for Saturn which is not so bright ... )
- minimum acquisition at 15 images per second, preferably 25 ips if possible
- Luminosity at 50% (75% for Saturn)
- Gamma at 0

3) Processing using Registax (free software).
The last step, wavelets, is the most important. For these Saturn, I did three sets of wavelets: one strong (big values), one light (small) and one medium(pleasing for the eye).
I then combined the three images in PS2 to get the best of all three: the strong one for the moons, the light one for the sky background, the medium one for the planet features.

4) Saturn animation done in PS2
Jupiter animation, quite complex, done using Iris and PS2 (http://www.lesbeninger.com/jupiter.html)

Cheers

JY

[zackae]

Nice animation you got there. Just hope there comes a day where taking high definition pictures for Amateur astronomers wouldn't be too expensive.

[cataclysm]

Really wonderful images!....Thanks for sharing your imaging tips.

[rcj]

spendid images, JY!! Keen on showcasing them in the A2008 gallery?

[Airconvent]

Hi Jean-Yves
great animation...! I finally see the moons!

[JY]

Keen on showcasing them in the A2008 gallery? ]

Yes, where is it?

Cheers

JY