Saturn and its moons Rhea, Tethys, Dione, and Titan on September 2, 2023 (JDJ)

Saturn and its moons Rhea, Tethys, Dione, and Titan on September 2, 2023

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Imaged Saturn and four of its moons on the night of September 2, 2023 under above average seeing and above average transparency. I was able to capture 8th magnitude Titan, and 10th magnitude Rhea/Tethys/Dione, but not 12th magnitude Enceladus. Rhea, Tethys, and Dione are to the left of Saturn, and Titan is to the right.

Imaged with a C8 Evo, ZWO ADC, Baader UV-IR Cut filter, and ZWO ASI224MC. Imaging train was configured to give me ~F/20.

For the Saturn image: Image capture using Firecapture with gain=400/exposure=12.5 ms. Stacking in AutoStakkert3 (best 20% of ~19000 frames captured over 240 seconds. Color balancing and Wavelet sharpening in Registax6. De-rotated and combined 3 sub images in WinJupos.

For the moons image: Image capture using Firecapture with gain=400/exposure=50 ms. Stacking in AutoStakkert3. For Saturn stacked the best 30% of ~500 frames captured over ~30 seconds. Color balancing and Wavelet sharpening in Registax6. De-rotated 1 sub images in WinJupos. Imported Winjupos image into PixInsight. Removed over-exposed Saturn using Clone Stamp process. Isolated moons using range mask. Light histogram stretch and curves adjustments.

Composite image of Saturn and moons generated using PixInsight Pixelmath process (added Saturn and isolated moons images)

Original version: Saturn + moons composite image

Rev A: Image exposed for the moons (including overexposed Saturn)

Rev B: Image exposed for the moons cleaned up with Saturn removed

Rev C: Saturn moon finder from Sky and Telescope showing the positions of the moons at the time of this imaging session.

Final
Original
B
C
D

B

Description: Image exposed for the moons (including overexposed Saturn)

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Image exposed for the moons cleaned up with Saturn removed

Uploaded: ...

D

Description: Saturn moon finder from Sky and Telescope showing the positions of the moons

Uploaded: ...

Cloudy Nights
Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) Imagers
Suburban Astrophotography
Solar System Imaging

	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

Status	n/a
Started	n/a
Astrometry.net job	n/a
PixInsight job	n/a
PixInsight queue size	n/a
PixInsight stage	n/a

Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):