Saturn Rising

[Hankmeister3]

I captured this single-frame image several months ago at our Penfield dark-site when Saturn was in a favorable position at along the southern meridian. Captured with a SkyMax 180mm f/15 (2700mm focal length) with 1/2 inch Meade orthoscopic eyepiece projection (circa 1978 manufacture) at ISO 320 and a 1/8 second exposure. One of 60 images I took that night and this image probably represents one of those "lucky shots" given the seeing conditions were fairly average under Pickering 5 skies but with a lot of humidity in the air column above our location. Single-frame capture. It's the best image of Saturn that I've taken since getting back into astro-photography last April/May 2018.

The post-production attempt on my part is as good as it can get with the CanoScan 9000F photoshop suite that I use. I used a Bahtinov focusing mask for initial exposures and barely tweaked it several times throughout the imaging session using the "hunt method". Halfway through I refocused with the Bahtinov mask and found the initial focus was indeed spot on. Cassini Division is clearly visible as well as a bit of banding and a polar cap. Saturn's shadow is detectable on the ring structure behind it.

[Mac]

This is my very 1st image of Saturn taken last night under very poor skies. I think the humidity was around 90%. I could just barely see it with naked eyes.

Celestron 6" Schmitt-Cassegrain on AVX mount

JU9_4701.jpg (13.59 KiB) Viewed 1430 times

[Hankmeister3]

Given your conditions, I'm surprised you captured any useable image at all of Saturn. Here in central Illinois many of us astrophotographers are very familiar with that kind of weather conditions and sky. When it comes to lunar and planetary photography, good sky is just about everything whether you're using inexpensive telescopes or high-quality "moderately" priced 'scopes! In many cases, when sky conditions are marginal at best, one generally finds going to a smaller (but quality) aperture telescope, like something in the 70mm to 102mm range, handles the bad seeing conditions a bit better. So bigger isn't always better, imo.