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quicksimon — Saturn Occultation 02-03-07
Published: 2007-03-30 10:31:28 +0000 UTC; Views: 1362; Favourites: 40; Downloads: 30
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Description
I couldn’t believe my eyes as the skies cleared for this!! I remember that it was quite cloudy during the day and I thought, ah well, at least I don’t have to wait till 3am to see it. But as midnight came, the skies cleared and out came the gear, as this doesn't happen every day!!!
. It was great watching the moon slowly creep towards Saturn. I was in a bit of a dilemma of what camera to use, the Canon 350D (which isn’t normally used for planetary/lunar imaging) or the Atik 2c (which is normally used for this kind of stuff). In the end I used both 
I just kept swapping every now and then. A few minutes after this was taken, half of Saturn was covered by the moon, just its rings poking out!! At the time, I was using the canon and the images are a little blurry, so I’ve gone with this one. After I’d taken the pictures, I had a proper look with a 10mm eyepiece and the view was stunning
Image details:
As it was impossible to correctly expose for both Saturn and the moon, I took 2 AVI’s. One to expose for Saturn, the other one for the moon. Then both merged in Photoshop.
Telescope: Celestron C9
Camera: Atik 2c
K3ccd tools used to capture 2 AVI’s
Registax 3 used to process both AVI’s of apporox 1000 frames each
Photoshop used to merge the 2 images together, then erase through the over-exposed moon.
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Comments: 48
The moon gives this wonderful image a sense of scale and distance. I love this.
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This is awesome my friend! 
Which telescope are you using in the photo? I have a Canon 450d and a Meade DS2090. Also I have a t-mount in the post on its way to me!
I am also in England, Liverpool to be exact and I find it really hard to get any good views. Its always too bright :/ lol Hopefully I'll get some goodens when the tmount arrives
xx
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Thanks very much, very kind
You're not a million miles from me, I live in Chester! I can imagine the bright lights in Liverpool will be a pain when trying to check out the stars .... Hope this helps
thanks!
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This is hardly an insect or arachnid..Please move it to the proper gallery. an astrophotography gallery does, in fact, exist. Other than that, this is really quite a nice shot.
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ha ha! Thanks m8. Yeah, I realised that as soon as I uploaded it, ah well
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How much did your imaging equipment run you?
I've been meaning to do some back yard astronomy,
I live in a mountain town with even higher peaks
and clear night skies... What would you recommend
as cost effective, yet worthwhile?
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You never cease to amaze me, dude
Keep 'em coming, I always love seeing your work
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Thanks very much, mate!! glad you like, take care!
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when i save money i'll buy a good telescope and a good camera
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Thanks a lot mate!! Do you you like astronomy/astrophotography? If you do then yeah, it's worth getting a the gear, it's very addictive
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however, i'll keep saving money
and yes, i reckon it's addictive
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Jeje... the first time I saw this pic I remember one of youre saturn pics, I guess you took that image to do this.
Nice work in photoshop, seems very real
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Thanks man!! This is a REAL pic though, I didn't cut another pic of saturn out and put it with a pic of the moon. This is how it looked through the telescope as saturn passed the moon
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Oh..!!! °_°!!! Yeah man "ho capito"
Awesome pic!!!!!!
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One of guys I know did a movie of Saturn moving behind the Moon and then reapperaing on the other side
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Thanks a lot! That sounds great! This picture comes from a movie too; well, 2 AVI's! The file size is massive though!! I think a 60 second avi is 1GB
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Hmm, let me see...
Only found images - [link]
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Thanks!! wow! That looks great!! I've still got a few more images of that night!! I've got another AVI at higher magnification and loads of shots I taken with the DSLR. The DSLR shots are blurry - it's not really the right camera to use for this kind of stuff as you know. I'll upload them as soon as I can
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hmm
blurry? But You did prime focus or piggy back?
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Prime focus. The focus looked fine, but the pictures could be a lot sharper. I must have been capturing the blured atmosphere!! That's why we use avis to captuer many frames and then registax processes them to get the best between the blured atmosphere, as you know
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That's why we make a lot of shots
Yeah, I guess avi is simpler. And can give incredible effects. One of the guys in our forum modified his internet camera for this job. You wouldn't believe what it can do...
[link]
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i was reading comments from 'AyaneShinobi' ^^^ and i heard about the hexagon shape spotted on the surface of saturn too ...also a while back now i remember hearing about a sphinx sighted on the surface of mars ...im telling ya mate ...~*~we are not alone ~*~*OOoooOOOOoooOW! 
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gah, it looks like it's so close...like, it's no further from the moon than the moon is from now...did it really look like this when you looked at them through a scope?
amazing picture none the less...it makes our little part of space not seem so cold and empty as far as neighbors go
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Thanks a lot mate!! Sorry late in replying! Hope ya doing ok
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Sorry so late in replying to this!! Thanks a lot, I appreicaite your comment very much!
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uh............................................ wow
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Thanks a lot mate!!! sorry for the unbelievably late reply.!!!!
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all good. you didnt have to say anything
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Wow, that's a great shot! So otherworldly (literally)! 
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Thanks a lot friend!
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Yep, I bet it's freezing over there in England! You guys are way up North. I'm in the southern part of the US, only 60 miles are so above Mexico, so I really can't complain about cold (compared to what other people are experiencing at the moment).
Yes, it was on the news that there is this weird hexagon pattern/shape on the top of Saturn. That satellite (what is the name of that thing they sent to take pics of Saturn?) took a pic of the top of Saturn, which is great because we (people) have never really seen the way top of Saturn before.
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You're 60 miles from Mexico and cold!! 
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First I thought it was one pic... it's a pity it isn't one. Once I've seen pic showing moon covering half of Saturn - you could see bigger hills on the moon!!!!! and Saturn was tack sharp...
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Thanks mate!
Essentially it is one picture! This is how it was seen through the telescope. It's impossible to expose for both saturn and the moon in one image!! Expose for saturn and the moon is far too bright; can't make out any craters or anything! Expose for the moon and Saturn doesn't even appear!! Would you prefer an over-exposed moon, or this? 
The picture you describe sounds really great, I reckon there was some magical tweaking going on to get the exposures right
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OK, it seems you're right, I didn't think about such simple thing :-/ keep going
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A HDR ( High Dynamic Range) picture of this occultation is the solution to the equal exposure of both objects. Can you send me the Canon images of the covering of Saturn?
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Man, this HDR stuff sounds like the future
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sned me whatever you want, I'll see.
HDR is a combination of stacking images with equal exposures, so in the end the entire image is properly exposured. Example: the moon, you can take an exposure which matches the dark side, so the dark side has enough details and luminosity, but the bright side will be way overexposed, so you take another picture, but this time you match the exposure tuime with the bright side. Combine those 2 images in HDR and you'll get a moon which is perfectly exposed.
[link]
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omg this is just awesome oO . such constellation , lol its impossible !
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Thanks a lot!! Glad you like this one
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