October 8, 2020
Average seeing this evening, though probably above average for October. Seeing conditions should be a little better the next couple of nights, so will try to get more data if possible. ASI224MC camera, Televue 2.5x Powermate, Baader UV/IR block filter with my 8" EdgeHD SCT on a Celestron Evolution mount.
September 20, 2020
This image one was taken at 1:54 UTC on September 20th with my Celestron 8" EdgeHD on an Evolution mount with a Televue 2.5x Powermate and ASI 224MC camera along with a Baader UV/IR cut filter. Lots of haze/smoke in the air from the western US wildfires.
August 1, 2020
An attempt at taking an IR image of Saturn with my 8" EdgeHD with a Televue 2.5x Barlow, a Baader IR pass filter and a ZWO ASI190MM camera.
July 18, 2020
First attempt at imaging Saturn through my new 8" EdgeHD SCT. This is the best image of three I captured. Seeing was good, but not great, and wind was causing the scope to shake at times.
June 26, 2020
I decided to try imaging Saturn with a little Celestron C90 on a photo tripod with no tracking or slow-motion controls. I still used the ASI224MC camera and Televue 2.5x Powermate, but without any tracking or slow-motion controls, imaging was extremely challenging. I wasn't able to use that many frames of the video file since in half the frames Saturn wasn't even in the frame or partially cut off. Even so, there were enough frames available in the four minutes or so of data I took to produce a reasonable image. This is better than my first attempts at Saturn with the C6 and had I had the scope on a better mount I would have had far more frames to stack and thus a much less noisy image. But, it shows that you can still image a planet on a pretty basic setup, though it is much harder.
June 5, 2020
The images below are both processed from the same data. The image on the right is just the image on the left with some color adjustments done to help details stand out better. The natural color one on the left looks better I think, but some of the details are easier to see in the second image. As with the June 1st image, data is taken with an ASI224MC camera attached to a Televue 2.5x Powermate with a Baader UV/IR cut filter added. The telescope used is a Celestron C6 on a manual Explore Scientific Twilight 1 mount.
June 1, 2020
First Saturn image of 2020. While still the same C6 telescope I used last year, the imaging train has been updated. An ASI224MC camera attached to a Televue 2.5x Powermate with a Baader UV/IR cut filter added. The initial image came out pretty good considering Saturn was low in the sky and still more than a couple of months from opposition.
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