Saturn, the ringed planet

Saturn is currently a challenging object to image from the UK because of its far southerly declination. At the time of this image (22 July 2018) it was almost as far south of the celestial equator as it can be, so that it struggled to reach 14° above the horizon from my home. This means that its light has to pass through 4 times as much air as it would when seen in the zenith, so not surprisingly the seeing was pretty dreadful.

Thanks to the wonders of frame sorting-and-stacking software like AutoStakkert, something of an image has been pulled out from the blurry object dancing around in the raw video.

Unfortunately we will have to wait some years for Saturn, in its 29½ year journey around the Sun, to reach more favourable positions from the UK – it does not cross into the northern sky until March 2026!

With Jupiter currently no better placed, planetary imaging is taking a back seat for me for the moment!

Takahashi TS-120 refractor, ASI174MM video camera, Baader RGB filters.