Saturn & The Seeliger Effect July 2020

Aberkenfig, South Wales

Lat +51.542 Long -3.593

 

A comparison of two images of Saturn captured on 12th July 2020 and one day after opposition on 21st July 2020. There is some evidence of the brightening ring system in the later image.

 

Skywatcher 254mm Newtonian Reflector, Tal 2x Barlow Lens, ZWO ASI 120MC Astronomical Imaging Camera.

 

Captured with Firecapture with the same camera settings on each date (for some reason, the software automatically reduced the gain by a small amount on the later capture). The low elevation and not ideal seeing conditions on both nights presented a little bit of a challenge.

 

Out of 7000 frames about 2450 frames processed with Registax 6 using the same levels and settings on each image.

 

Post processing levels adjusted with G.I.M.P. with the same settings to produce B&W and colour images.

Annotations added with G.I.M.P.

 

Firecapture Settings:

2020-07-12

FPS (avg.)=39

Shutter=24.75ms

Gain=95 (95%)

AutoHisto=75

WRed=49

WBlue=89

Gamma=14

 

2020-07-21

FPS (avg.)=39

Shutter=24.75ms

Gain=87 (87%)

AutoHisto=75

WRed=49

WBlue=89

Gamma=14

 

 

Done