Saturn and its moons on September 25, 2022 (JDJ)

Saturn and its moons on September 25, 2022

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Imaged Saturn and its moons Titan, Enceladus, Rhea, Dione, and Tethys on the night of September 24, 2022 (September 2t5th in UTC) under average seeing and transparency. Separate captures with exposures set for Saturn in on and the moons in the other. The brightness of the moons is increased relative to that of Saturn in the combined image to bring out the moons. While I could see Titan clearly in the eyepiece and image exposed for the moons, the others were quite faint and in some cases not visible until the image was stretched.

Imaged with a C8 Evo, ZWO ADC, Baader UV-IR cut filters, and ZWO ASI224MC. Imaging train was configured to give me ~F/20. Image capture using Firecapture with gain set at 375 and an exposure of 20 ms (for Saturn) and 75 ms (for the moons). Stacking in AutoStakkert3 (best 10% of ~12,000 frames captured over 240 seconds for Saturn and best 25% of 1000 frames captured for the moons). Color balancing and Wavelet sharpening in Registax6. De-rotated and combined 3 images of Saturn in Winjupos. Used Winjupos to align the separate images of Saturn and the moons. Cleaned up image of the moons in PixInsight (removed Saturn and other artifacts using clonestamp process, isolated moons using starnet mask, further clean up using clonestamp process, stretched to bring out the moon images). Combined images of the planet and moons using GIMP.

Original version: Final combined Saturn and Moons image

Rev B: Final combined Saturn and Moons image, with labels for the moons

Rev C: Saturn only image

Rev D: Image with exposure for the moons, hard stretch applied to bring out the faint moons

Rev E: Screengrab of Sky and Telescope Saturn's Moons finder used to confirm the moon locations

Final
Original
B
C
D
E

B

Description: Final combined Saturn and Moons image, with labels for the moons

Uploaded: ...

C

Description: Image with exposure for the moons, hard stretch applied to bring out the faint moons

Uploaded: ...

D

Description: Image with exposure for the moons, hard stretch applied to bring out the faint moons

Uploaded: ...

E

Description: Screengrab of Sky and Telescope Saturn's Moons finder used to confirm the moon locations

Uploaded: ...

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