レイ・ジョーンズ

Saturn

Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system behind Jupiter. Saturn's rings slowly but constantly change their appearances seeming to disappear every 15 years. Saturn radius is 60,267 km, it takes 30 years to orbit the Sun, and its day is 10 hours long.

Saturn is many amateur astronomers’ favorite planet because of its beautiful ring system. Like Jupiter, Saturn is a gas giant, but unlike Jupiter we cannot see much colour variation in its clouds. This picture was taken at the Distant Suns Observatory, Inasa-cho, Shibukawa.

Date                     3^rd March 2005 6.53 pm

Exposure Time              20 frames per second ? Total 1510 frames

F-stop                   f20

ISO                       N/A

Camera                 Philips ToUcam Pro video camera

Scope / Lens              Meade 250mm SCT

Method ? The ToUcam Video camera was connected to the Telescope prime focus.

The video was captured and then loaded into Registax for Video frame stacking and noise reduction. Final sharpening and colour balance was completed in ImagesPlus.