Saturn, with the resplendent colours of its southern hemisphere.

I had superb seeing for this session and that has resulted in a lot of detail being resolved in the planet's atmosphere.

There is a large storm cell in the NNTeZ on the p side of the Central Meridian, which could be seen in both the RGB and IR images. On its f side a series of small ovals can be observed.

This is the first image I have captured where there is clearly discernible activity in the southern hemisphere now that the ring tilt is allowing us to see that. On the northern side of what I think is the SSTeB, there is quite a dark feature on the f side of the Central Meridian nearer to the limb, again clearly discernible in RGB and IR. On the p side of this feature is a line of small ovals and festoons.

OTA: C14 EdgeHD

Camera: ZWO ASI 178MM

Mount: Paramount MX+

Barlow: Siebert UV 1.5X...giving a 7m focal length

Image scale 0.07 "/pxl

RGB captures: 90 secs per colour channel, 11 runs

Frames stacked: 87,000

Frame rate: 72 fps

Exposure 13ms

Copyright: Niall Macniell

Image Description and Details : Saturn on 18th August 2021. This is a substantially south up view. The seeing was excellent throughout the night of capture. The conditions allowed resolution of finest details on the planet's cloud tops. The Encke Division could be seen in the Blue images, which is unusual. The Maxwell Gap in the C Ring is also well resolved, especially in the colour image. OTA: C14 Edge HD Camera: ZWO ASI 174MM Filters: Chroma RGB Barlow: Tele Vue 3X Frames: 42,000 Frame rate: 47 fps Exposure time: 20ms Focal length: 13.5m

Copyright: Niall MacNeill