First image of Saturn

I AM SICK TO $%#@$# DEATH OF THE $$#%@#$# WEATHER IN THIS $%$#$%% COUNTRY!!

Have you noticed the skies are clear here on the east cost during the day but as soon as the sun sets......................the feckin clouds roll in from the west?

It is really starting to piss me off.

A grand image Keith, and just to annoy you, its perfectly clear here in the west. :twisted:

Hi Keith
Welcome to the world of planetary imaging. Here's a few hints for what it's worth.

Saturn is quite dim for a planet, with little surface detail so image for 6mins.

Do NOT use more than 10 frames per second. USe over this and you'll get crap individual frames and drop loads too while you capture.

Keep your exp time as short as possible and adjust your gain. The faster your exp time the more chance you have of capturing an instant of steady seeing. You can get rid of noise (from high gain) by stacking loads of frames.

Capture Saturn while its at its highest. That means around now in the early evening. Sometimes I find that this is the best time of the night anyway.

Focus focus focus, this is most critical. Use the Cassini division to gauge how sharp the focus is.

When using Registax-
Set your fft on the align page to about 12-15. That lovely liitle orange dot cannot be too big (only aligns on large detail) or too small (may try to align on noise).
Set "stretch individual frames" on the stack page. If the image is too bright after stacking use "contrast" to reduce it on the wavelet page.
Leave wavelets set at default for the mo and I usually find that number 3 is the best for Saturn.
USe RGB align if you find a bit of a glow around the image. This is sometimes from the atmosphere making the RG and B come to a different focus.

Hope this helps

Dave Gradwell

Oh Yeah great first image btw.

Thanks Dave,

Thats whats so frustrating. I didn't intend to image that night. It was an after thought before I put my gear away and happened to notice the clouds clear in the west. I hadn't used the webcam before, I hadn't used K3ccdtools, nor registax, Saturn was low over the roof in the west, my EQ platofrm polar alignment was off so Saturn drifted at the 2x 1500mm FL of my scope with the 2x barlow, so all but one avi had Saturn too close to the edge of frame to align and thus use.....and like I said to top it all off I set something wrong and only captured 10 frames instead of 1800 (3mins @10fps). Then given that I just clicked auto on registax and this is what it produced using all 10 frames (Good or bad).

Well I am amazed that this is what it produced. Given my lack of knowledge, this being an afterthought and everything going wrong. Frustrated that even if only one or two more things had gone right, the cam, scope and registax could have produced something even better. Its frustrating because I can see the potential there as bad as the image is. You can see the cassini division, there is cream colour starting to come out and brown of the N EQ belt. You can just about see the S EQ belt. I mean even without knowing anything about registax yet. Had I just been in a little less of a rush at the end of the session and focused just a bit better and had I set K3ccdtools right and got the 1800 frames, well I would at least have the raw data there to practice with Registax on. or even handed of the data to someone here to work their registax magic on.

Because of the screw ups I have nothing worth working on and each cloudy night that passes, the night gets shorter and Saturn sinks lower in the west by darkness. I can feel it slipping away from me.

Thats what I meant about wishing I had got the scope and gear earlier and been at the stage I am now experience wise (ie very little) back in December. That way I might have at least had some useful raw data captured that I could begin honing my registax knowledge on for the planetless next 2 years!

Keith you have a great object to practice on every month - THE MOON!! Its great as you can practice high and low mags, and with the big brightness ranges you can hone your processing skills

so dont get too dishartened.


DaveG

Well I tried imaging Saturn again tonight and used amcap. Sure enough I got a 5 or six captures of 1800 frames each.

Of course the wind screwed everything up. Whie the wind didn't seem to affect seeing, it made staurn dance around the screen. Registax alignment box would just not stay attached/aligned. The image might calm back down and stabilise somewhat but the alignment box didn't seem to lock back on and thus the only frames available to stack on any of the runs were those that it sorted through till the box would lose alignment for the first time. Another excercise in frustration.