Saturn

One of the most stunning planets in our Solar System, Saturn is the sixth planet away from the Sun and the second-largest planet in our Solar System. With it being a gas-giant planet like Jupiter, the surface of Saturn is mainly composed of hydrogen and helium, with its core composed of iron and nickel. That sadly means we can't visit Saturn's surface in the future, but we can still marvel at the complexity and beauty of it from just our backyard using a telescope.

Cassini-Huygens

On October 15, 1997, the Cassini Orbiter was launched on its seven-year journey toward the ring planet. It was one of the most ambitious and revolutionary efforts in making planetary exploration a reality. Since its launch, Cassini has been in space for over 13 years orbiting around Saturn 294 times while taking over 400,000 astonishing photos of its icy moons, rings, and surface.

On September 15, 2017, Cassini exhausted its fuel supply which was keeping it in Saturn's orbit. So at its final hours of life, Cassini was ordered with one last mission - to plunge itself into Saturn's atmosphere to prevent any harm to its moons or rings. Without Cassini, we would have never been able to learn and understand so much about the universe we reside in.

Cassini was one of my favorite missions set off by NASA, as it caught my eye with its extraordinary pictures of Saturn. The picture above is called "The Day Earth Smiled," as Cassini took it from the dark side of Saturn. Looking very closely at the image below, you can see a small blue dot with an arrow pointing toward it. If you haven't guessed based on the photo's name, that's Earth! The indescribable feeling I get imagining myself viewing Earth as just a tiny little dot in the night sky as we see here is one I'll never get from any other photo. This is the kind of effect that Cassini had on me and many others around the globe.

Photographing Saturn

Planetary Photography is one of the most popular types of astrophotography around. With each planet's unique characteristics, astrophotographers enjoy capturing photos of every planet from Mercury to Uranus. 

Since Saturn is very bright in the night sky, it's easy to locate with a designated astronomy app like Stellarium or Sky Guide. The problem is the size. Even though you can see the bright dot in the sky, you need at least 25x magnification to capture the distinction between its body and rings. So to get a good photo of Saturn, I suggest having at least 150x magnification with an aperture of 8 inches to capture the individual rings and layers on its surface. To calculate your telescope's magnification, use this formula: (Focal Length of Telescope)/(Focal Length of Eye Piece) = Magnification.

The next step in getting a crisp shot of Saturn's rings and layers is taking multiple photos and stacking them. Since Saturn is so bright, there is a simple trick to this. Set your camera's ISO to around 2400-3600, switch to video record mode, and raise the FPS to the highest it can possibly go. This will allow us to take a tremendous amount of photos over a period of time. For example, if I had my camera set to 30 FPS, I would be taking 1800 pictures per minute of Saturn. Now you could go two ways with this. If you have a motorized mount, set it up towards Saturn, let it track it, and start recording for as long as you please. Remember, the more data you collect, the greater your photo's quality will be. If you do NOT have a motorized mount, set up your telescope to make Saturn pass through the center of your camera's frame while you record. Even though you won't be able to take 10-minute videos, this will still be adequate data to make a pleasing image of Saturn. After taking your video, you can center, stack, and process it through PIPP, AutoStakkert, and RegiStax. I will be making a tutorial soon on how to do all of this, but for now, you can find a good tutorial here. If you want to go above and beyond, you can take your final product from RegiStax into Photoshop or PixInsight for some touch-ups.

I used my school's telescope - Celestron NexStar 8SE - and my unmodified Canon Rebel EOS T3i (600D) DSLR camera to capture this photo of Saturn below. Unfortunately, the viewing conditions for this night were not the best, but I could still capture an amazing photo.

Saturn Details:

• Planet # from the Sun: 6

• Moons: 83

• Object Type: Gas-Giant Planet

• Mean Distance: 887 million miles

• Apparent Magnitude: -0.24

• Apparent Size: 15 - 21 Arc Seconds

Resources:

Missions - Cassini (NASA)

NASA Science - Saturn

Gallery of Saturn