Webcam Saturn from Thursday

Got some good seeing and (finally) a break in the clouds Thursday. It's rare, and quite a thrill, for me to be able to see the Cassini division all the way round, right on the monitor. This is with the 8" LX200 SCT and 4x TV Powermate (f/40), Toucam 840k at 1/25s and 5 fps, best 500 of 1700 frames auto-processed in Registax 3:

home.earthlink.net/~dslattery1/images/Saturn_2-24-05.jpg

One of the great things about webcam imaging is that you only need five or ten minutes of optimal conditions to grab a couple thousand frames for stacking. Fun!

-- Denis Slattery

Denis,
You must have some great seeing, that s fantastic image.
If only I could get that level of detail here

Thanks Dave! That kind of seeing is rare here in SoCal, more common in the moist skies of parts of Florida. Many's the night I've spent with a cold thumb on the Coolpix 995's remote, clicking away for hours and spending more hours sorting and grading only to end up with a fuzzball. The webcam is a godsend compared to that afocal routine.

Also, the Televue Powermate 4x, though it's a 2" behemoth and looks like overkill, seems to provide the ideal scale for the purpose and of course has wonderful optics. A bit pricey, but worth the money IMO.

Still looking for a chance to get a good Jupiter image this season..

-- Denis S.

Denis,
that is a beautiful image! You're right about the Division - all the way around, and you can also make out the shape of the globe through the gap. It has an almost 3D effect too, which is really nice!

Thumbs Up!

Seanie.

Superb image alright!
Do u do any processing after you were finished with it in Registax?

Thanks for the comments, this was done in Registax 3 but conversion to JPG was in Photoshop. I did try messing with auto-levels, auto-contrast and unsharp mask in PS but the image didn't improve so I left it alone.

Now I'm all intrigued with this RAW conversion for Toucams .. what's involved guys??

-- Denis S.