Saturn from 2018 to 2023 (Niall MacNeill)

Contains: Solar system body or event

Image of the day 09/12/2023

Saturn from 2018 to 2023

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Image of the day 09/12/2023

Saturn from 2018 to 2023

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

The excellent seeing of 29th August 2023 allowed me to produce an image from the 2023 apparition of Saturn, which is good enough to go into the montage showing the evolution of the planet and particularly its ring tilt over the last 6 years. Note the very bright rings in the 2023 image. That is due to the Seeliger Effect, where the rings brighten a lot around opposition due to the absence of shadows on the ring particles and coherent back scattering of the reflected light. The image was acquired 2 days after opposition when the effect is still evident.
As a reminder for those of you who may not know, Saturn is tilted at nearly 27 degrees to the plane of its orbit. The direction of this tilt is maintained, such that as it orbits the Sun, the appearance from Earth changes from one where the rings are fully open to where they are edge on, every 7.5 years, or 1/4 of the orbital period of the planet. They will be edge-on in 2025.

Original
B
C
Final
D

B

Description: Overlap defect removed

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Correcting some cosmetic defects

Uploaded: ...

D

Description: Slight darkening of 2023 per Gary Imm's observation

Uploaded: ...

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	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

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	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

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

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

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Contribution Index (beta):

Image of the day 09/12/2023

Saturn from 2018 to 2023

Image of the day 09/12/2023

Saturn from 2018 to 2023

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Image Index:

Contribution Index (beta):

Image of the day 09/12/2023

Saturn from 2018 to 2023

Image of the day 09/12/2023

Saturn from 2018 to 2023

Equipment

Acquisition details

Description

Comments

Revisions

B

C

D

Histogram

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