Processing the Moons of the Planets

Siril Team Siril Processing Stacking Solar System Saturn
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Matthew avatar
Matthew avatar
I was wondering if there is a better way to stack photos of the moons of the planet Saturn because when I stack them in Siril, the stacked image is just blurry, so I am only limited to a single 2-sec exposure. I have a C-11 Edge scope F-10 and a ZWO ASI 183MC for my main cam.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thank you, Matt
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Tony Gondola avatar
Tony Gondola avatar
Unlike the planet itself, the moons are relatively faint. Even the brightest, Titan is mag. 8.4 at it's brightest. The rest go down from there. That means that the normal lucky imaging techniques you would use for the planet itself aren't going to be effective. The best you can do is expose properly for the faintest moons you want to capture, just know that you won't capture any details. They are too faint and small.
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Tom Williams avatar
Tom Williams avatar
Matthew:
I was wondering if there is a better way to stack photos of the moons of the planet Saturn because when I stack them in Siril, the stacked image is just blurry, so I am only limited to a single 2-sec exposure. I have a C-11 Edge scope F-10 and a ZWO ASI 183MC for my main cam.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Thank you, Matt

Siril isn't particularly optimal as far as planetary stacking goes. I use Autostakkert!4 alongside many others. Depending on your seeing and stacking settings, it should be possible to obtain the moons in the "normal" captures that have Saturn properly exposed. Capturing in 16-bit mode improves your chances but I've still obtained Mimas (mag +13) in 8-bit mode. Siril is useful for processing the stacked images however; autostretch and atrous-wavelets transform can come in handy when teasing out the moons.

For what it's worth, I tend to stack at 25% (of 2 mins) for Saturn's moons. 12ms exposure at 500 gain with the Uranus-C/M at f/17.5.

CS, Tom
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andrea tasselli avatar
andrea tasselli avatar
Not quite sure whether you are after surface details in Saturn's moons (forget it) or actually exposing correctly so they look round. In my experience the typical short exposure to capture Saturn is enough to get all the main ones, down to m14 or thereabouts.
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