Playing with Saturn last night
Aug 29, 2018 20:13:47 #
I had a window of no clouds and moderate upper level winds making viewing challenging.
I shot 2 minutes of video of grossly over exposed to pull the moons and of course having never shot Saturns moons my orientation is off.
I can flip the orientation in the capture software but didn't know which way was up until later when I found a program on Sky and Telescope.
I then shot a 2 minute video more correctly exposed and stacked both images separately in Autostakkert!2.
I pulled both stacked images into Photoshop and cloned the correct Saturn over the over exposed Saturn.
This gave me my final image that has moons. Dione and Tethys are pretty faint but visible near the bottom of Saturn.
Moons from left to right
Rhea
Dione
Tethys
Titan at the bottom
Not great but not bad for a first attempt.
Jim
I shot 2 minutes of video of grossly over exposed to pull the moons and of course having never shot Saturns moons my orientation is off.
I can flip the orientation in the capture software but didn't know which way was up until later when I found a program on Sky and Telescope.
I then shot a 2 minute video more correctly exposed and stacked both images separately in Autostakkert!2.
I pulled both stacked images into Photoshop and cloned the correct Saturn over the over exposed Saturn.
This gave me my final image that has moons. Dione and Tethys are pretty faint but visible near the bottom of Saturn.
Moons from left to right
Rhea
Dione
Tethys
Titan at the bottom
Not great but not bad for a first attempt.
Jim
Aug 29, 2018 20:20:23 #
Aug 29, 2018 21:04:46 #
rmorrison1116 wrote:
Not bad at all...
Thank you very much.
I would have been surprised if I hadn't made a few mistakes on this.
I now have a way to check the moon locations real time for future shooting.
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/wp-content/plugins/observing-tools/saturn_moons/saturn.html
Jim
Aug 30, 2018 00:33:11 #
Sheesh Jim!
I'm stoked if I can see Saturn.
But Moons? Holy Moly!
Well done!
I'm stoked if I can see Saturn.
But Moons? Holy Moly!
Well done!
Aug 30, 2018 08:16:00 #
SonnyE wrote:
Sheesh Jim!
I'm stoked if I can see Saturn.
But Moons? Holy Moly!
Well done!
I'm stoked if I can see Saturn.
But Moons? Holy Moly!
Well done!
Thanks Sonny.
I was surprised at just how much I had to overexpose to pull the moons out.
They are very over powered by Saturn.
Jim
Aug 31, 2018 01:48:31 #
Aug 31, 2018 11:07:20 #
bwana wrote:
Nice! bwa
Thank you very much.
I had to give it a try and was surprised at how much Saturn washes them out.
This is my overexposed file corrected for moon placement.
Jim
Aug 31, 2018 14:25:19 #
Sep 1, 2018 22:22:50 #
You do realize that your "not great" shot would have made any astronomer (or photographer) from fifty or sixty years ago die of envy. I can't wait to see one that you consider really good.
Sep 2, 2018 00:48:26 #
axiesdad wrote:
You do realize that your "not great" shot would have made any astronomer (or photographer) from fifty or sixty years ago die of envy. I can't wait to see one that you consider really good.
50 years ago I was just learning about astronomy from a college student that took me under his wing. I was a curious 6 grader that would have loved to have been able to image like this.
I appreciate your observation and didn’t mean to imply that I wasn’t satisfied with my results.
It was a first effort with several errors that I have been working to correct.
Thank you very much for the compliment. As photographers we tend to be our worst critics.
Jim
Sep 2, 2018 09:24:54 #
Oh my. Rereading my comment I see that it does sound like I was scolding you. I apologise. I intended only to share my awe and gratitude that photography and amateur astronomy have come so far. My first look at Saturn was more than sixty years ago and I can still recall that night, but I suspect the years may have sharpened the image more than the small telescope I was looking through.
Albuqshutterbug wrote:
50 years ago I was just learning about astronomy f... (show quote)
Sep 6, 2018 15:30:02 #
Sep 6, 2018 15:30:31 #
Sep 7, 2018 00:36:38 #
sgtpreston wrote:
my feeble effort . My first attempt. used HDR
Nice pull of the moons and still maintaining the ring space.
I’m quessing from the placement in frame this is with a phone?
Jim
Sep 7, 2018 00:37:46 #
sgtpreston wrote:
Albuqshutterbug amazing
Thank you very much.
It’s a learn as I go and I keep making progress.
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