On my last night at the VATT, the clouds rolled in right before dawn. Rather than close up early I tried a little Saturn observing. Thanks to the use of a narrow-band Vilnius S filter (central bandpass ~0.655 nm), a shutter that can take short exposures and the clouds, I was able to get a few good shots of the ringed planet.
Usually when astronomers image the planets they use video rate cameras and take 1000s of images. Specialized software is then used to pick out the best of the images which are then co-added together to bring out subtle details. The VATT4K is not optimized for such rapid imaging so I was limited to taking only a few images. Still the image shows lots of good detail. It sure helped that the mountain was experiencing sub-arc second seeing.
The image below was one of the best.
Carl,
There is no need for post-processing when the initial image is this good. The detail is extraordinary. Thanks for sharing!
Robert Lunsford
Chula Vista, CA
Well, I did do a little bit of unsharp masking on the image.
Next time I’m up there, I’ll try Jupiter as well.