Saturn returns to our morning skies to show off its resplendent beauty. (Niall MacNeill)

Contains: Solar system body or event

Saturn returns to our morning skies to show off its resplendent beauty.

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

It is been quite a while since I posted a planetary image. Saturn is the only planet now on the south side of the Celestial Equator and that means it gets to a nice altitude for me in the Central West of NSW, Australia.
It is awe inspring and there is no doubt that it is the jewel of the solar system.
I had superb seeing for an extended session on Saturn this morning. The wide field view, shown here as it fell on the sensor, is substantially south up. The moons above the planet (south) in the image from left to right are Rhea, Dione & Tethys. Ruddy Titan, the 2nd largest moon in the solar system, is at lower right (north). The southern regions of the planet show substantial activity and really have a wondrous colour scheme. I did not increase the saturation to bring these colours out. Despite NASA images always showing a dull Saturn that is not how it shows up on our sensors here on Earth.

We can now see how much the rings have closed up since last year as we head towards 2025 when they will go edge on.

There were three bright features all at a similar meridian, EZ, NTeZ & NNTeZ.

The first decent image for the season and that is pleasing.

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	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
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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

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	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

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Saturn returns to our morning skies to show off its resplendent beauty.

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Saturn returns to our morning skies to show off its resplendent beauty.

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