Saturn nearly edge on

March 28, 2009

Uploaded 3/29/09

Here is a comparison of the Planet Saturn in both visible light and ultra violet wavelengths. The upper image was a filtered tri color RGB sequence, each color a stack of the best of 1000 frames. Seeing was average, and varied from 5 to 10 arcseconds. The blues in the polar regions was very interesting. The lower frame was taken with the schuler UV filter, isolating the methane band. Not much for belt detail. The UV filtered exposures were 100x longer than the RGB images!

800 x 600

800 x 600
Processing: alignment in Registax, Wavelets in Registax, Levels and Contrast In Photoshop CS3,
Instrument: 12.5" f/5 with 2x Barlow Platform: Astrophysics AP1200 CCD Camera: Image Source DMK 31AU03.AS Filter: Meade RGB, Schuler UV Exposure: 1/10 sec for RGB, 10 sec for UV Location: Payson, Arizona Elevation: 5150 ft. Sky: Seeing average, Transparency 8/10 Outside Temperature: 40F Processing: Registax, Photoshop CS3, Focus Magic Plugin