Images of Saturn 2009/10

The rings closed completely back in September, but Saturn was on the far side of the Sun at the time.  This means that we are now beginning to see the northern side of the rings.  They will slowly continue to open until early January after which they will close again reaching a minimum in June.  The rings will slowly open year by year until 2017 when we will see the northern side at their maximum.

The images are in chronological order, so the best may well be in the middle.

	My first picture of the season.  Saturn was low in the early-morning sky (36°) when this picture was taken only twenty minutes before sunrise.  Saturn was 1,500 million kilometres (10.03 AU) away and subtended an angle of 16 arc-seconds. Date and Time: 17th November 2009 07:04 UT Camera: ToUcam 840K Telescope: LX200 with X2 lens Capture: K3CCDTools. Low gamma, high saturation, 1/25", 50% gain, 609 frames Processing: Registax. 187 frames stacked, histogram 0-165, wavelets 1-2 = 10.
	My second picture of the season.  Saturn was low in the early-morning sky again (36°) when this picture was taken about an hour and a half before sunrise.  Saturn was 1,390 million kilometres (9.29 AU) away and subtended an angle of 17 arc-seconds. I say this is low in the sky, but this is almost as high as it gets.  This picture was taken with a monochrome camera which is not such a good idea because atmospheric refraction still separates the colours but they cannot be realigned later.  Conditions were poor with high cloud. Date and Time: 3rd January 2010 06:33 UT Camera: DMK 21AF04 Telescope: LX200 with X2 lens Capture: ICCapture. 1/5", gain 668, 385 frames Processing: Registax. 199 frames stacked, histogram 0-205, wavelets 1-3 = 10       Focus Magic 4, 100.
	My third picture of the season.  Saturn was rising much earlier now, so I was able to image it in true darkness (although a 15-day Moon was only 40° away).  Saturn was 1,330 million kilometres (8.87 AU) away and subtended an angle of 18 arc-seconds. This image was taken only a few minutes after culmination, so Saturn was as high in the sky (38°) as it was going to be.  We were still 7 weeks before opposition so it will appear a little bigger (at 19 arc-seconds) later on. Date and Time: 31st January 2010 03:53 UT Camera: Toucam 840K Telescope: LX200 with X2 lens Capture: K3CCDTools. 1/25", gain 40%, 1203 frames Processing: Registax. 580 frames stacked, histogram 0-170, wavelets 1-2 = 10       Focus Magic 4, 100.

And here with four of its satellites.  Move your mouse over the image to see which is which.  Dione is rather faint so, on the mouseover image, I have edited a single pixel to make its position clear. These are composite images, I have substituted a correctly-exposed image of the planet over the over-exposed image that was necessary to show the satellites.

By early March, Saturn was rising early enough to be accessible late in the evening rather than in the early morning.  Here it was still an hour or so short of its highest but at 37° altitude and 158° azimuth (right over my local town).  Saturn was 1,280 million kilometres (8.56 AU) away and subtended an angle of 19 arc-seconds. This image was taken at 10 frames per second.  I do not usually use this speed as the camera compresses the data more (and therefore degrades the image more) than it does at 5 fps.  I then picked out this image as the best I had for that evening without noticing that it was the 10 fps one.  So the extra compression does not seem to have degraded the image more than was compensated for by being able to throw away more bad frames and still have a suitable number to stack. Date and Time: 5th March 2010 00:17 UT Camera: ToUcam 840K Telescope: LX200 with X2 lens Capture: K3CCDTools. Low gamma, high saturation, 1/25", 65% gain, 2414 frames (@ 10 fps) Processing: Registax. 219 frames stacked, histogram 0-145, wavelets 1 = 10, 2 = 5.

Only three days later but the skies were exceptionally clear, not that that seems to have yielded a spectacularly clearer image  I also waited a little longer so that Saturn was at its maximum altitude (39° at azimuth 183°).  Saturn was still 1,280 million kilometres (8.56 AU) away and subtended an angle of 19 arc-seconds. I have enhanced this image rather more than I usually do, but I'm not sure it has improved the image very much. Date and Time: 8th March 2010 01:23 UT Camera: ToUcam 840K Telescope: LX200 with X2 lens Capture: K3CCDTools. Low gamma, high saturation, 1/25", 35% gain, 1583 frames Processing: Registax. 171 frames stacked, wavelets 1-3 = 10, histogram 0-140.

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