🌠 #10: Early Saturn

🔭 A Morning Encounter October 13, 2018

This was a quick session — an early-morning attempt to capture Saturn before it dipped below the horizon. I got up before dawn, set up the rig in the fading darkness, and scrambled to get things aligned. By the time everything was ready, Saturn was already low and sinking fast.

I clipped my old compact Canon camera in front of a 10mm eyepiece, with a 3× Barlow attached. The kids took their chance to peek at the rings on the live display, and I took mine — recording a few minutes of video in .mov format. Nothing fancy, just a spontaneous grab at the moment.

⚙️ Acquisition & Processing

As usual with this “workaround setup,” I had to get creative. Since AutoStakkert doesn’t accept .mov files without additional patches (which never seemed to work on my PC), I went the long way around: I used Free Video to JPEG Converter to extract still frames from the video.

Not ideal — but it worked.
No manual control over shutter speed, frame rate, ISO, or gain. Just whatever auto-settings the old Canon decided to use that morning. So the raw frames looked exactly as you’d expect: blurry, dark, low contrast. Honestly, it was hard to tell if you were even looking at Saturn. You had to believe.

Then came the stacking. And somehow — math, magic, and maybe a little morning luck — Saturn emerged. The rings became distinct, the planet’s body clearly round. The image was soft, sure — no Cassini Division, no detail, no texture. But still, this was by far the best Saturn shot I’d managed up to that point.

Something must have clicked — maybe the seeing was unusually good, maybe the camera settings landed in just the right place. Either way, I ended up with not only a decent color rendition of Saturn but even a subtle hint of the Cassini Division. Almost.

🧠 Reflections

This experience made one thing clear: I urgently needed a better solution for planetary imaging. A modded webcam, perhaps. Something that offers manual control. Predictability. Precision. Because right now, every planetary capture is a bit of a gamble.

Still, this session was a small victory — and proof that even limited gear can surprise you.

Clear skies,
Chris