From: "Alan Friedman" <alan@greatarrow.com>

Date: February 11, 2007 11:18:32 AM MST

To: <Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com>

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] My Saturn at Opposition

Reply-To: <alan@greatarrow.com>

Hi Jim -

I'm amazed that you have been able to image at all from Toronto - everytime I see 

a clearing and think of setting up to image it has turned to snow by the time I get 

my coat on. Your image shows the ring brightening at opposition quite nicely.

Not sure what is going on with your color images. The seeing should not be an 

issue. You are doing the right thing to increase the shutter - I would work on your 

capture settings until you see a smooth full color image on the screen without 

need for a high gain setting. Don't worry if it's soft - even if the cassini division is 

not visible at all. Just try to record accurate color. You can also reduce the focal 

length to increase image brightness and resize the RGB component later in 

Photoshop to match your luminance data. The LRGB process is quite forgiving 

here. Remember - you don't need to process the RGB image much - it is not 

providing the detail. If you want to test this, go to your LRGB composite and 

gaussian blur the heck out of the color layer - see how far you can go before it 

makes a difference in the composite image.

I used the Unibrain color industrial camera for a bit (not one of my wiser 

purchases) - it is quite noisy, but should be able to record an adequate color 

image if you give it enough light.

Alan

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------

From: "jimchung2338" <jim_chung@sunshine.net>

Reply-To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Date:  Sun, 11 Feb 2007 17:56:40 -0000

Well, some success at getting a color version of Saturn but I can't seem to get the 

multitude 

of colors that others are.  I;m not sure if it's just a matter of seeing conditions 

which have 

been generally poor all winter here in Toronto.  Certainly the mono Flea is a great 

performing 

firewire camera.

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/Planetary/

saturnlrgbopposition2007.jpg

Jim