These images cover the 2018 season. Saturn reaches opposition on 29th June 2018.
This year the rings are again fully open with the northern side presented towards us. Unfortunately Saturn is far south of the ecliptic and comes to opposition in June. This means that Saturn is very low in the sky and at a time when it never gets truly dark at my latitude (53°N). So imaging is as difficult as last year.
The images are in chronological order.
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This picture was taken at prime focus of the 14-inch LX200 belonging to Doncaster Astronomical Society on the day of opposition. Consequently the rings should be brighter than usual (the Seeliger effect). This is the first time I have tried two passes through Focus Magic although I have known others to do so. The second pass of 25% at blur radius 5 made a very small difference.
Date and Time: 29th June 2018 22:51 UT Camera: DFK 21AF04 Telescope: LX200-14 Capture: ICCapture. 1/45", 1023 gain, 1799 frames Processing: Registax5. 365 frames stacked, wavelets 1=40, 2=10, gamma 0.8 Focus Magic 7 and 5 (25%). |