These images cover the 2020 season. Saturn reached opposition on 20th July 2020.
This year the rings are continuing to close as Saturn moves north, although it is still far south of the ecliptic. This means that Saturn is still 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 with my ETX125 with a X2 lens attached. The inclination of the rings was 21·1° and Saturn was at an altitude of 16°. It was 9.11 AU (1.36×10^9 Km.) away and subtended 18·3 arc-seconds.
Date and Time: 25th June 2020 01:23 UT Camera: DFK 21AF04 Telescope: ETX125 with X2 lens Capture: ICCapture. 1/6", 1023 gain, 1799 frames @ 3.75 fps Processing: Registax5. 1020 frames drizzled X2, colours aligned, Gaussian wavelets Scheme 12 Focus Magic 7. PhotoImpact reduced back to the original size. |
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A better picture taken only 10 days after opposition using my LX200.
Date and Time: 30th July 2019 23:00 UT Camera: DFK 21AF04 Telescope: LX200-10 with Atmospheric Dispersion Corrector Capture: ICCapture. 1/38", 1023 gain, 3573 frames Processing: Registax5. 539 frames stacked, Gaussian wavelets Scheme 7a |
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Long past opposition, Saturn is getting lower in the sky but here it is in September when at least it gets dark. Although Saturn was low in the sky, the conditions were good so I was able to use my X2 SLR lens.
Date and Time: 21st September 2020, 21:16 UT Camera: DFK 21AF04 Telescope: LX200-10 with X2 lens Capture: ICCapture. 1/4", 1023 gain, 899 frames Processing: Registax5. 396 frames stacked, Gaussian wavelets Scheme 13, Focus Magic 7, Gaussian Blur 1 |