After over 6 weeks of uncooperative weather, I finally had another chance to image Saturn this morning. Seeing was good, but the transparency was very poor and very variable as high clouds were passing through and then finally put an end to the session about an hour before transit. This image is from the last run of the sessions with the blue channel hitting a scant 40% on the histogram at full gain and 17 fps. The other channels were captured at 30fps.
Rhea is shown as is a small ripple of storms in the NEB (north is up) and an interesting dark feature is near the following limb. Some slight appearance of spokes is evident near the b-ring and the Encke gap is barely discernible.
And one more from a few minutes earlier, during the best conditions of the session. Presented with south up.
Note: This image appeared in Sky and Telescope Magazine, June 2011, p.77.
Wayne J.
