Contains:  Solar system body or event
Powerful Saturn near opposition, Andres Salaverria

Powerful Saturn near opposition

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

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Description

Imaging planets is hard. At least for me. It's not like your typical DSO where you can leave the ASIAIR or N.I.N.A. do its stuff. For this, I sit near my telescope looking at the image using Sharpcap to capture, with the goal of achieving the best focus I can. Once I feel I cannot do any better, then I adjust gain and fps as I examine the histogram. All of this as the photons travel through the think air over Houston. And by the way, Saturn is a meager 40 degrees over the Horizon. I started when it was just under 30. Quite frankly, I am doing a lot of guess work, try very hard and hope for the best. And yet, the magic happens!

A lot of fun! I took several videos and processed them in Autostakkert and Registax. I think this is the best outcome I could achieve. I have imaged Saturn near opposition in the last four years, and if you have the time look at my images from 2021 and 2022 (I did not publish 2020 on Astrobin) you can see the tilt of the rings changing. Amazing stuff!

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