Science at Parramatta High
(3) — September 20 1999
 Saturn

This movie was taken on 20/9/99, at about 5:25am, through a 90mm (1450mm focal length) Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope.
It was recorded on a webcam mounted at the Cassegrainian focus.
The original movie was 640x480 pix with 16M colours - an 81M .avi file!
It was then converted to this 32 colour, 100x79 pixel gif - file size 31k. Much more civilised.
The shimmering is a function of atmospherics, scope movement and the webcam software hunting for a stable image.
The movement (slight!) down to the left is a function of the error in the equatorial tracking of the telescope.

Unprocessed single frame Processed single frame At left is one of the better single frames from the movie,
with minimal processing.

At right is the same frame, with slightly enhanced brightness and contrast.

At the time these photos were taken, the angular diameter of Saturn's disk was 19.5 arcseconds.
The rings (major diameter) were 44.04 arcseconds wide.
Saturn's brightness was magnitude 0.0
By way of comparison, the moon was 30 min 2 seconds wide. That's 1802 arcseconds, or about 92 times the diameter of Saturn.
STOP PRESS. (10 days later) The photo at right was taken with the school's Mavica digital camera, using eyepiece projection. Minimal image processing (only) has been applied to this GIF.
Click the image at right for some interesting information...		 Click for more info on this shot
30/9/99
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Information about the telescope and camera used for these photos.
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