11 replies to this topic

[Tulloch]

A cold morning (by Australian standards), little wind and reasonable seeing. I got out early and took a number of videos but found my first capture at 5:25am was the best one. Maybe the influence of central heating units around my place is having an impact. 

 

Here's Saturn at 150% captured size with (L-R) Mimas, Enceladus and Rhea. Tethys is transiting, but I can't get it to show up. I've brightened the rings slightly in Photoshop (and the moons significantly more) to produce this composite. It shouldn't be too long before the rings shouldn't need to be artifically brightened, before they start closing up again.

 

 

Image captured using a Celestron Evolution C9.25" SCT, ZWO ADC, Televue 2.5x Powermate, ASI224MC.

 

Andrew

[nib2000]

Fantastic shot!

[BQ Octantis]

Bewdy, mate!

 

A strange sight, Saturn with no rings…

 

BQ

[Kiwi Paul]

Beautiful image Andrew.
Cheers Paul

[KMH]

Terrific!

 

Kevin

[Tulloch]

Thanks for all the likes and comments .

[KiwiRay]

Nice work processing the rings. It's still surprising that they look so dark. I guess it's because the sunlight is still only hitting the edge this close to Saturn's equinox, so the ring face isn't receiving much light. Even as the rings close from our perspective later in the year, they shouldn't be as dark as this because the sunlight angle will be greater.

Edited by KiwiRay, 21 May 2025 - 12:24 PM.

[Tulloch]

Nice work processing the rings. It's still surprising that they look so dark. I guess it's because the sunlight is still only hitting the edge this close to Saturn's equinox, so the ring face isn't receiving much light. Even as the rings close from our perspective later in the year, they shouldn't be as dark as this because the sunlight angle will be greater.

Thanks Ray, it's interesting, before I started capturing Saturn this year I kinda thought the rings would be very bright, similar to what happens at opposition. However the complete opposite is true, and the rings are very dark. It will be interesting to see what happens as the months move on...

[Lacaille]

I am fascinated by all this, doodling on pads trying to imagine what is happening. The rings average only about 10 m thick so when perfectly edge on would presumably be hard to resolve with our instruments. As the angle increases we see more of them but perhaps the long shadows cast by the ring particles nearest to us fall on the particles behind, muting their brightness. I imagine there must be academic articles on this phenomenon that I should try and track down. Nice work anyway Andrew!

[Tulloch]

I am fascinated by all this, doodling on pads trying to imagine what is happening. The rings average only about 10 m thick so when perfectly edge on would presumably be hard to resolve with our instruments. As the angle increases we see more of them but perhaps the long shadows cast by the ring particles nearest to us fall on the particles behind, muting their brightness. I imagine there must be academic articles on this phenomenon that I should try and track down. Nice work anyway Andrew!

Thanks, yes, we had a big discussion about it here, with maths and everything!

https://www.cloudyni...025/?p=14117141

 

It's all about the the angle of the rings as we view them (about 2.5 degrees at the moment), compared to the angle of the rings to the Sun (a couple of tenths of a degree).

 

Andrew

[Lacaille]

Yes, I’d seen and enjoyed that interaction, thanks! Have you seen anything about the brightness question?

[Space Cowboy]

Very nice!