Saturn's Moons Gather
Hi all,
Well last night at my observatory in Yellow Springs we had some decent seeing, it wasn’t perfect, but better than we usually get here in the Midwest, it was coming and going every few minutes.
I attached my DMK fire-wire camera and Optec Filter Wheel to Ron Whiteheads C-11, and took some Prime focus shots of Saturn with 5 Moons gathered close by.
Saturn’s rings are very thin right now, with very little light coming into the camera from them, so I had to turn the gain way up…to capture more signal to help get the 5 moons as well. I provided a Negative Luminance image as well to help you see the moons especially Hyperion at Magnitude 14.19
Planetary Image assembly- Saturn LRGB 05-14-09
Saturn DMK 21F04 Fire-wire Camera,
Optec LRGB 50mm filters,
PrimeFocus C-11, Captured as 1 minute AVI files
30 to 60 frames per sec
1400 Frames per Channel stacked in Registax 5, deconvolution in Maxim DL,
and final balance in Adobe.
I have some very nice close-ups as well, and will post them later when I finish processing them.
Saturn’s rings and biggest moon Titan are easily visible in any small telescope with at least 30x power. Saturn is straight over head in the constellation of Leo right now and will be easily visible for the next few months, so get your small telescope out of the closet and take a look.
Best Regards,
John Chumack
www.galacticimages.com