By Judy Boyle | 2026-10-02
Saturn
On 09/22/2026 11:52 pm by Roberto Ortu | Website | Cabras, Sardinia, Italy
This is a photo of Saturn now close to opposition which, in addition to its rings and some atmospheric bands, also shows some of the brightest satellites orbiting the planet and which are visible even with small telescopes. In this image the brightest satellite is Titan, then to the west of the planet Rhea and Dione are visible, to the east instead we have Tethys and the fainter Enceladus.
I had to do two shots with different exposure times to try to show the other satellites as well as the larger Titan.
During the night, the seeing was overall good, with moments of greater stability and sharpness when the planet was high in the sky.
Celestron 114/910 Newtonian telescope
Mount Eq2 Sky-Watcher
Planetary Camera QHY5L-II-C
Barlow 2.5X Tecnosky
UV/IR cut filter
Firecapture 2.7 for two videos: for Saturn 7335 frames at 20 fps, for satellites 500 frames.
Pipp, Autostakkert!4, Registax 6, GIMP to process 2689 frames for Saturn, 252 for satellites.