Saturn 07/06/2015 and mini observing report

[Johnnyaardvark]

Finally managed to keep my eye's open long enough to get out and have a play. Helped that I'd been out doing some solar in the afternoon so left my gear half set up for the evening. Hoped to have a look at Venus but was disappointed to see it had already set (behind a house) from my location. So had to settle for a quick look at Jupiter in that direction. The seeing was pretty awful. A few moons quite visible but little to no surface detail in my ED80.

 

Lifted the mount and gear down the garden (not too far a few feet... it's a small garden!) pointed the mount roughly north and unlocked the clutches and lined up on Saturn using a the finder and a wider field ep to locate it. Great to the rings for the first time this year. Little to no detail in the rings though as the image was swimming even in lower magnification.

 

My 200p is currently out of collimation and I am waiting on fitting a spreader plate behind the secondary to smooth adjustment. In spite of the seeing however and short focal length (ED80 600mm + 2x Barlow option) I was determined to try out focussing and exposure settings on the QHY5L-II. I'd had some issues with lines across the image earlier in the day while imaging the sun.

 

Anyhow, the image is so so but it was good practice centring  the image and trying to focus in moments of slightly better seeing. After initial problems with it moving across the field of view rather quick (I thought my rather rough alignment was a bit too rough... but it turned out to be mostly that I had left the mount on solar rate from earlier in the day... Doh!) and in between encroaching clouds I managed 6000 or so frames.

 

This is about 86% of that 6000.

Stacked in AutoStakkert 2 and post processed in CS2 for sharpening and enlarging.

 

Saturn 07/06/2015 by Steve Athey, on Flickr 

 

Steve

[+Bino-viewer]

Nice capture Steve.

I was looking at Saturn too last night ; your image is similar to what I saw.

Had the occasional hint of Cassini at times.

But it's always a pleasure to see Saturn, you never tire of it......

[Doc]

Nice capture Steve, there are very subtle hints to the Cassini Division there. 

[Johnnyaardvark]

Thank you gentlemen. Had really hoped to see something of the Cassini division visually but was really hard pushed to see anything. Unless we are really lucky I think it will just be too low but I guess we have to make the most of it as it continues to drop each year. If I remember correctly it's going to be like this for the next 17 yrs.

 

Still as you say Rob it is always a pleasure to see it. 1st saw it as a child through a cheep refractor and it even amazed then. Have since shown a few people through similar questionable pieces of kit and they are always amazed to see the rings. a real crown pleaser! :-)

 

I am quite pleased with the image considering the kit I am using and the conditions. The other half does quite get what I have managed here  she enjoyed the afternoon outside with a beer while I imaged the sun the other day though.

 

Steve

Edited June 9, 2015 by Johnnyaardvark

[+Graham]

Nice image there Steve, not the easiest of targets this time around.

[catman161]

That's very nice Steve, you could probably sort the brightness of the image in Photoshop with a little levels and curves adjustment that may bring a little more detail to the fore. Well done for getting it, not easy at the moment with he low elevation putting it amongst the murk.

[Johnnyaardvark]

Thanks for that. Certainly not the easiest of targets currently with all the turbulence through the atmosphere but nice to have a play. Do like the colour in your image though.

Thanks felix. :-)

OK with the brightness on my phone but had noticed it was a little dark. May have a further play but I have stretched and sharpened it quite a bit already so trying to hide some of that in the image! :-)