planetary gallery

	This image of Saturn was taken by John Lockett on the night of the 11th of January 2006. The image is made up of a composite of two separate images, one exposed to reveal 6 of Saturns moons (therefore totally overexposing Saturn itself), and another exposed for Saturn only. The two images were combined in Paintshop, and labels added, to give the final result which shows the positions of 6 of Saturns brightest moons.
	Mars - An excellent image captured at 10pm on the 18th of November 2005 by Richard Darn (a friend of YAS) using his Celestron CGE14, 14"SCT at F22 on a CGE computerised mount. A Toucam Pro web cam with an IR block filter was used to capture the image. Imaging details are :- C14 at F22 using a Barlow. Web cam settings: brightness 35; gamma 0; gain 13; shutter speed 1/25s; frames per second 10. About 1486 frames were stacked using Registax.
	Paul Buglass captured this image of Mars at 21:10 on the 15th of November 2005. It was taken with a Celestron C8, Toucam Pro webcam, and a 2x Televue Barlow giving F20. K3CCDTools was used to capture 2000 frames and Registax was then used to select and stack the best 900 frames to produce the final image. The image below is a generated by Mars previewer II and shows Mars as it would have appeared at that time.
	This image of Mars was taken by John Lockett on the night of the 6th of November 2005 at about 21:15. The image was taken with a 8" Meade LX200 SCT. A Philips Toucam Pro web cam was used to capture several hundred frames. Registax was then used to selectively stack the best frames from the video sequence and produce the final image The small bright area towards the top of the image is Olympus Mons. The image below is a generated by Mars previewer II and shows Mars as it would have appeared at that time.
	This image of Mars was taken by Paul Buglass at the 2005 Kielder Star Camp on the morning of the 12th of September at about 2am. The image was taken with a Celestron C8 SCT on a Vixen GP-DX mount driven by a Skysensor 2000PC system. A Philips Toucam Pro web cam was used to capture 1,000 frames at 1/25s exposures. Registax was then used to selectively stack the best 250 frames from the video sequence and produce the final image which was slightly processed with Paint Shop Pro to adjust the histogram levels.
	Jupiter - Another fantastic image showing a shadow transit of Io captured by Richard Darn (a friend of YAS) using his Celestron C14, 14"SCT at F22 on a CGE computerised mount. A Toucam Pro web cam with an IR block filter was used to capture the image.
	Jupiter - An excellent image captured on the 14th of May 2005 by Richard Darn (a friend of YAS) using his Celestron C8, 8"SCT at F22 on a CGE computerised mount. A Toucam Pro web cam with an IR block filter was used to capture the image. Imaging details are :- C8 at F22 using a Barlow. Web cam settings: brightness 35; gamma 10; gain 24; shutter speed 1/25s; frames per second 10. About 250 frames were stacked using Registaxout of a total captured of 600.
	16th May 2005 - This image of Jupiter was taken by Paul Buglass with a Celestaron Celestar 8 and a Philips Toucam Pro web cam. A 2x Televue Barlow and Baader IR block filter were used. A 600 frame video sequence was captured using K3CCDTools, aligned and stacked using Registax 2, and final processing using Paintshop Pro 7. The seeing was very poor, hence the poor detail of the surface features.
	16th May 2005 - This image of Jupiter was taken by Paul Buglass with a Skywatcher 80ED and a Philips Toucam Pro web cam. A 3x Antares Barlow and Baader IR block filter were used. A 600 frame video sequence was captured using K3CCDTools, aligned and stacked using Registax 2, and final processing using Paintshop Pro 7. The seeing was very poor, but the smaller aperture helped to minimise the impact of atmospheric turbulance.
	12th May 2005 - Two images of Jupiter taken by Paul Buglass with a Skywatcher 80ED and a Philips Toucam Pro web cam. A 2x Televue Barlow and Baader IR block filter were used. 365 frames from a 500 frame video sequence were captured using K3CCDTools, aligned and stacked using Registax 2, and final processing using Paintshop Pro 7. The Moons Europa, Io, and Callisto are visible in the top image.
	22nd April 2005 - Jupiter taken by Martin Whipp and Paul Buglass with a Celestron Celestar 8 and a Philips Toucam Pro web cam. A 2x Televue Barlow and Baader IR block filter were used. 76 frames from about 650 taken in a 2 minute or so video sequence. Captured using K3CCDTools, aligned and stacked using Registax 2, and final processing using Paintshop Pro 7.
	Saturn - Imaged on the 2nd April 2005by Richard Darn (a friend of YAS) using his Celestron 14" SCT at F22 on a CGE computerised mount. A Toucam Pro web cam with an IR block filter was used to capture the image.
	4th April 2005 - Jupiter imaged by Paul Buglass using a Celestron Celstar 8, with 2x Barlow and Toucam web cam. The best 171 frames out of 1200 were processed by Registax to produce the final image. The Moon Io can be seen to the top left with Ganymede and its shadow transiting the surface of the planet to the lower left.
	4th April 2005 - Saturn imaged by Paul Buglass using a Celestron Celstar 8, with 2x Barlow and Toucam web cam. The best 121 frames out of 1200 were processed by Registax to produce the final image.
	6th March 2005 - two images of Jupiter captured the same night as the Saturn images below. Jupiter was much lower down and the seeing was much more turbulant, hence the lack of detail. A hint of the Great Red Spot can be seen to the top right of the image.
	6th March 2005 - Saturn imaged with a Philips Toucam web cam and a 2 x Vixen Barlow. Best 269 frames from a 1200+ frame video captured through the York AS 12" Meade LX200 SCT. The seeing was reasonable, and Registax was able to produce these splendid images which show the cassini division and the C ring along with equatorial banding and a larger amount of shadow on the rings to the left because Saturn is well past opposition. Two versions of the same image are shown with the second being contrast enhanced to darken the background and boost the belt detail.
	29th January 2005 - Saturn imaged with a Philips Toucam web cam and a 2 x Televue Barlow. Best 101 frames from a 1200+ frame video captured through the York AS 12" Meade LX200 SCT. The seeing was terrible, but Registax was able to work its magic and process this splendid image which shows the cassini division and a hint of the C ring along with equatorial banding and a small amount of shadow on the rings to the left as Saturn is just past opposition.
	Steve Cuthbert took this image of Saturn using a web cam and his Celesteron 8 inch SCT.
	13/0903 - Mars - This image was taken by Paul Buglass at about 22:30 using a 10" F 4.8 reflector and a 2 x Televue Barlow giving an effective focal length of approximately F10. The image was captured as a 500 frame video using K3CCDTools and processed using Registax. The seeing was very poor and not much detail could be teased out. The SPC shows up well and is much smaller than it was a month ago as the martian southern summer progresses. An IR block (Baader) filter was used and this has IMO, resulted in a much more accurate orange colour. What do you think?