Saturn - under the best seeing conditions of 2021 so far (Niall MacNeill)

Contains: Solar system body or event

Saturn - under the best seeing conditions of 2021 so far

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Saturn - under the best seeing conditions of 2021 so far

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

At long last I had superb seeing conditions when imaging Saturn. I made 13 RGB and IR642nm BP runs of 90 secs per colour channel so I had a mountain of data to get an excellent signal to noise ratio. The seeing was excellent throughout. The conditions allowed resolution of fine detail on the planet's cloud tops. You know the seeing is good when you can see the Encke Division in the Blue images. The Maxwell Gap in the C Ring is also well resolved, especially in the colour image.
There is a very distinct small white storm cell in the NTrZ on the f side of the meridian, and interestingly it is much more easily discerned in the RGB image. I made a blink animation to compare the detail visible in IR versus RGB. The Hexagonal Polar Vortex, also seems to be a different size in IR versus RGB. See Revision B
The turquoise blue of what we can see of the southern hemisphere is amazing. Truly beautiful. I can't wait to see what this looks like as each year goes by exposing more of it. Perhaps the intensity of colour is a function of the oblique angle and that may be less apparent when we are more face on to it. I did nothing to enhance the colour in this image.
Speaking of colour, I find it amazing that all the images from Earth have this colour palette, notably Ecleido's excellent Saturn which is IOTD today. Why is that all the NASA Cassini Spacecraft images are yellow? People keep saying this is the "natural" colour, but I don't buy it. The NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter images of Mars have the same yellow hue and that is not replicated in the ESO Mars Express images, which look like those acquired from Earth in terms of their colour palette. Can anyone shed any light (ha ha) on this?

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B

Description: Blink animation of IR and colour images

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Saturn - under the best seeing conditions of 2021 so far

Saturn - under the best seeing conditions of 2021 so far

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Saturn - under the best seeing conditions of 2021 so far

Saturn - under the best seeing conditions of 2021 so far

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