2023-10-02, 10:33 PM
I managed to grab the 9 brighter moons of Saturn on 1st Oct 2023 from our back garden in Brisbane with my Tak Mewlon 210 F11.5, Tak x1.6 Extender and ASI2600MM Pro camera.
To cater for the varying brightness levels, I grabbed a series of test exposures ranging from 01 sec to 30 secs and used the following data sets to generate the final composite image using Layers In PS CC to blend the 3 sets of images together.
05 secs x 30 frames 11:00pm to 11:04pm AEST (UT+10).
15 secs x 30 frames 11:11pm to 11:20pm AEST(UT+10).
02 secs x21 frames 11:28pm to 11:30pm AEST(UT+10).
SkyTools 4 Imaging provides the following details for 11:15pm AEST (UT+10).
Saturn at Magnitude: 0.54
Satellites:
Name Mag PA° Sep"
Mimas 13.0 271.9 27.5
Enceladus 11.8 100.6 33.4
Tethys 10.3 275.0 44.6
Dione 10.5 91.5 53.2
Rhea 9.8 269.6 69.4
Titan 8.4 118.5 79.0
Hyperion 14.3 287.0 128.9
Iapetus 11.2 100.9 65.1
Phoebe 16.6 240.1 600.3
The image of the inner moons is a full res crop and the wider view has been resampled down to fit in Phoebe, some way away from the planet. The image of Saturn was taken with my ASI662MC and blended in over the blown out Saturn.
SkyTools 4 Imaging proved very useful as I could monitor the changing positions of Enceladus and Mimas in real time, as Enceladus was being increasingly swamped as it entered Saturn’s glare on the E and Mimas began to emerge from the planetary glare on the W.
Dennis
Full res crop of inner moons
Down sampled wider view to include Phoebe
And this is what gave me certainty that I had succeeded.
To cater for the varying brightness levels, I grabbed a series of test exposures ranging from 01 sec to 30 secs and used the following data sets to generate the final composite image using Layers In PS CC to blend the 3 sets of images together.
05 secs x 30 frames 11:00pm to 11:04pm AEST (UT+10).
15 secs x 30 frames 11:11pm to 11:20pm AEST(UT+10).
02 secs x21 frames 11:28pm to 11:30pm AEST(UT+10).
SkyTools 4 Imaging provides the following details for 11:15pm AEST (UT+10).
Saturn at Magnitude: 0.54
Satellites:
Name Mag PA° Sep"
Mimas 13.0 271.9 27.5
Enceladus 11.8 100.6 33.4
Tethys 10.3 275.0 44.6
Dione 10.5 91.5 53.2
Rhea 9.8 269.6 69.4
Titan 8.4 118.5 79.0
Hyperion 14.3 287.0 128.9
Iapetus 11.2 100.9 65.1
Phoebe 16.6 240.1 600.3
The image of the inner moons is a full res crop and the wider view has been resampled down to fit in Phoebe, some way away from the planet. The image of Saturn was taken with my ASI662MC and blended in over the blown out Saturn.
SkyTools 4 Imaging proved very useful as I could monitor the changing positions of Enceladus and Mimas in real time, as Enceladus was being increasingly swamped as it entered Saturn’s glare on the E and Mimas began to emerge from the planetary glare on the W.
Dennis
Full res crop of inner moons
Down sampled wider view to include Phoebe
And this is what gave me certainty that I had succeeded.