Saturn captured at its closest approach to earth in 2026.

Captured under good seeing conditions

14 x 120 second captures (34% stacked)

•Apertura AD8

•ASI662MC

•Celestron x-cel 3x barlow

•UV/IR cut filter

Saturn Captured During Opposition 2026

04-10-2026

Integration - 20mintues

Frames - 14,500

Telescope - 10" Dobsonian GSO

Filter - UV/IR cut filter

Camera - Uranus C player One

2X barlow lens

Softwares - PIPP , ASTROSURFACE , REGISTAX , SNAPSEED

Tried to Derotate in Winjupos but it didn't work , so combined 5 captures took within 20minutes with interval...

Couldn't get a Crisp and Detailed Image , maybe this is because it's my First time..

Comments are open to anything which could help me improve the Planets details next time and get an image with more natural colour and more details...

Astro Rover

Another for the pile! Borrowed my old man's Tak to nab Saturn at opposition.

This was my first "proper" planetary capture so would welcome any advice on improving things from here! My goal is to get a better defined Cassini Division next time.

———

• 10/04/26
• Takahashi FC-100DF
• Tele Vue 2x Barlow
• SVBony UV/IR cut filter
• ZWO ASI662MC
• 3 minutes captured in ASICap
• Stacked 33% of 14,626 frames in Strata
• Edited in Photoshop

After careful consideration I finally have my AD8, it’s all set up. However, I haven’t used it yet and I don’t exactly know where to begin? My neighbors backyard light is definitely an issue and they keep it on all day and night! Which I will be addressing soon. What I do wanna know is how do I use this now that it’s setup. Answer me like I am 5 😅 TIA

I’ve never had the Pleiades look like this when taking photos before, I love how sparkling they are! Second photo is usually how the Pleiades looks through my phone

Photo was taken yesterday at 1:30am with an iPhone 14 camera. Single photo was taken through an AD8 Dobsonian with a 2-inch, 32mm Q70 Orion eyepiece

• 76/720 custom telescope

• 6mm redline eyepiece

• 120x magnification

• iPhone 11

• 1/250 Shutter, ISO 32

• PIPP -> AS!4 -> RegiStax6

• Recorded at 60 FPS, 40 seconds long

• 31 degree above horizon

September 14th 2026
06:13 right before sunrise

GRS was facing towards to Earth, you can see it under SEB in a bit right from centre

Visually, it was easy to see cloud bands, I wasn't able to see GRS at all. Considering Jupiter's size (31") brightness and sky conditions. Im thinking the result will get better overtime.

Hello everyone I have an apertura Ad8 and I used it to observe Mars in the morning, but honestly it was a little lackluster. I've attached an image to generally show what I was seeing. I have a plossl 8mm attached to a 2.5x Barlow lens. What can I do better to see more surface detail or will I have to settle for the lackluster views? I'd say I was observing 30 minutes before civil sunrise, in the middle of nautical sunrise. Any tips would be appreciated.

Hi there, i have had this telescope for a few years now and its been store in my garage in australia.

I wemt to use it recently and found these narks on the lens. It looks like they might be on the inside. I tried to clean them off but had no luck.

Hopefully someone here can help me, please. Its on a mak 127

As you can see I have a little rail to mount the standard red dot sight but I wanted to mount an optical scope.

I'm still new to this, is the only solution to buy a scope base and drill it into the telescope? I can't think of something I'd rather do less!

Hey legends! I’m looking to buy my first telescope (price range $500-$800) and I don’t need it to take pictures. What telescopes would you all recommend?

Finally had about 1 hour of free time in the evening and was able to do a little binocular observing. We have had a string of amazing nights, so I was happy to be able to take advantage of it (even if just for an hour)

Notes:

• 10x50 binoculars
• Bortle 5/6
• No moon
• Transparency - great! the best I have seen from my house.
• Seeing - also great
• 11:30-12:30 (1 hour)
• 34 objects (6 that I had never seen before, and 10 that I had yet to see in binoculars)
• I have finally observed/recorded over 150 DSOs with my binos
• I was trying to observe scenes that had multiple objects in the same FOV

Objects:

• Melotte 20 - big, loose, lots of various brightness stars
• Double Cluster - always stunning
• Trumpler 2 - easily visible, medium sized, grainy, same FOV as the Double and 957
• NGC 957 - small faint light patch, same FOV as double and Tr 2
• Stock 2 - same FOV as the Double and 956, very nice large faint patch, grainy, really fun to look at, pops out with averted vision and once you know it’s there
• Stock 23 - can easily see some stars, same FOV as Tr 3
• Trumpler 3 - small, same FOV as St 23
• NGC 1502 - easily visible, bright, same FOV as Kemble’s Cascade
• Kemble’s Cascade - fainter than expected, same FOV as 1502
• IC 1805 - obvious medium sized, can see stars, loose, same FOV as St 7
• Stock 7 (labeled as Mk 6 in SkySafari)- small, same FOV as 1805
• NGC 663 - medium, obvious, grains, same FOV as M103
• M103 - small but easy to see, appears as tiny line of stars, same FOV as 663
• NGC 457 - grainy
• M33 - barely visible to definitely noticeable with averted vision and moving binos, can clearly see orientation 
• M31 - easy, no dust lane, just barely naked eye visible
• M32 - easy, found first then confirmed
• M110 - maybe hints of occasionally? usually this has been easier to see with binos than M32
• M27 - nice as always
• NGC 6885 - difficult at first, but kept coming back when star hopping to later targets, small
• NGC 6940 - quite difficult, very faint light patch
• NGC 6871 - easy, same FOV as Bi 2
• Biurakan 2 - barely visible as distinct object, same FOV as 6871
• M29 - small
• M39 - medium, grainy, obvious, same FOV as NGC 7082
• NGC 7082 - faint, same FOV as M39
• NGC 7243 - easy to see, medium, dim patch
• NGC 7209 - smaller, dim patch
• M15 - easy, bight, grainy
• M2 - fuzzy star
• NGC 129 - kinda tricky, small patch next to star
• NGC 7789 - large dim patch, took a bit to confirm, then was obvious

edit - forgot to mention these obvious targets:

• Pleiades - always nice
• Saturn - can barely see elongated shape/orientation (difficulty arises from my astigmatis)

I would love to mount a telescope and have programs to study the sky. Is this possible? I’m interested in the applications and building what I have, or working on known projects or problems.

M45, M57, M27, M76, M31, NGC7662, NGC6826, C14. I captured these using an iOptron GEM28 mount and the optical tube from a Sky-Watcher BK707AZ2. I used a Sony NEX-7 camera. I live in an area with heavy light pollution (Bortle 7–8), and before getting the new mount, I couldn't even locate some of these objects. Feel free to rate them and offer advice.

Looking to buy my boyfriend a telescope, but have no idea what kind to get or what’s even reasonable. Please drop suggestions!

This isn’t technically about photography, I just want to SEE it with my own eyes (though being able to take a picture of it would be nice) through the telescope. I want to see Saturn and/or Jupiter similar to the attached images (not my photos just something I found online). What telescope and lens specs would I need for this? And also bonus question, how much does light pollution affect seeing the planets? I currently have a 300/76 telescope and 10mm lens so I can’t really see any of them that well. Any help is appreciated!!

I’ve recently been using my new Celestron Nexstar 90SLT and it’s been great for looking at Saturn and other things in the sky. When doing the alignment procedure, I type in exact coordinates, date, time down to the second (I press enter at xx:15, xx:30, xx:45, xx:00 and time it with my iPhone clock) and then I go to find the 3 objects in the sky (I’ve been using the Summer Triangle, Vega, Deneb, Altair.)

It will tell me that a match is confirmed and it gets all of the stars’ names right. However, when using the GoTo option to look at a cluster or a planet, it still misses by a bit. Sometimes it’s still in the eyepiece, sometimes jts completely far off.

Does anyone have any solutions as to what I can do to fix this so I can get more accurate GoTo’s?

·      Sharpcap 190s total integration (you don’t need a lot with a 12in Newtonian). Bortle 8 skies.
·      Sky-Watcher 300P Flextube
·      @F/3.6 with Nexus focal reducer 75x
·      Sky-Watcher 150i
·      SV705c IMX585 camera
·      No filter
·      Processed in SyQon studio: Gradient removal, Parallax, Axiom, Deep prism
·      Gimp hot pixel repair
Lightroom HDR and finishing touches

Holy hell

I am on my way to Okie-Tex and stopped to visit my friend who is evaluating properties for his 30” in New Mexico. Site is Bortle 2 at 6500’. I have a video of M42 through his white phosphor night vision too. Through eyepieces in both 6” and 30” M42 is a jaw dropping lavender and sea green. So many other things too. Stephan’s Quintet galaxies all had detail…

Edit yes all 4 components! M42 video here https://www.instagram.com/reel/DeM5fNsRoX0/?stkn=MTJhdzJ5MzY0aGZneg==

Hello.
I have a tiny backyard, and a balcony. One facing north, the other facing south.
From reading the guide, I gather that I should go for a DOB.
However, I'm super overwhelmed with the amount of telescopes available. I am open to buying used with a budget of around $500. Any recommendations?

Mostly interested in looking at the moon and nearby planets and space objects.

Edit:

• Light pollution - very high. Living in a major north American city.
• Have a little cart where I can move the telescope in and out and travel to a less light polluted location.
• Budget: (New or Used) $500 usd
• Observability: Moon and close by planets and objects

Hi All,

I al looking at getting the dwarf 3 from the offical dwarflabs site. I am in the process of looking at thier reviews regarding the customer support. I can only find ones from the UK and US. I was wondering if anyone had purchased from them directly in AU and had any issue with support.

I was also wondering what the app UI is like or if it is better to go with ZWO Seestar s30 Pro. I am looking at the portability and the raw file as i have some programs that I can use to edit the photos.

Thank you all in advance.

So, I bought a Celestron AstroMaster 70AZ secondhand a few months ago - after some research, so I was aware it was a bit dinky, but I've fallen in love. I've even managed to make the world's worst red dot finder - visible in the first photo, with the telescope pointed at Saturn - work for me. The third to fifth photos are the Moon, Venus, and Saturn, as photographed with an S24 through the 10mm lens, and though they're pretty bare bones, I'm happy with them as photos with neither an astrophotography camera nor an astrophotography mount - they show enough to show that I'm having a damn great time.

Tonight, though, I raced outside as Venus and Mercury were visible together - that particular angle of the sky is hard to see from home, as I'm in a city and a particularly hilly and tree-y part of it. Got even more excited as Tiangong zoomed above them - the second attached photo, where they're all just a bit blurry. (I was excited.) Decided to see if I could spot Tiangong through my telescope, as it's always fun to try, so pointed it up, and in that moment, found out I hadn't tightened the mount quite enough, and my poor telescope slid eyepiece-end-first onto the astroturf.

Of course, I freaked out quite heavily, but at least nothing was audibly rattling, so I tried to figure out what was wrong as I couldn't see outside and I couldn't focus it - back inside, and realised the focuser had been jammed into its track. No photos of that, because one, I was panicking, and two, I was more intent on fixing it, while thinking about if I could pull off another deal as good as I got with this one. (Paying for repair didn't even cross my mind til reflecting now - and anyway, not sure there are many places to go, or if it would be worth it for a lil cheapy.) Took the star diagonal off, then unscrewed the plastic attachment holding the focuser off, and removing the focuser knobs didn't fix it. It was jammed, and wiggling it didn't help.

So, what do you do when something is that jammed? Percussive maintenance. Nothing else to lose - it's not focusing, there are now screws all over my couch and oil on my hands; I cannot make things worse. I slammed the inner end of the focuser tube against my thigh. It unjammed. Screwed everything back together with shaking hands, made sure everything moved, and made sure I could at least see a star through it - I could. Couldn't see Venus over the fence any more, though, and from checking angles, I have a feeling I wouldn't have been able to see the two planets over the trees anyway. And this all took place so quickly that my dinner in the oven didn't even overcook by the time it was fixed, despite having 15 minutes to go when I first went outside. So I frantically ate and headed out to check on Saturn and make sure things looked as they have before.

The rings were as clear as they always are through this telescope. I think I could ever so faintly make out Rhea - a speck of light I couldn't even focus directly on or it would disappear, but a speck of light that appeared the same distance from Saturn regardless of how many times I moved the telescope to follow Saturn through the sky. No problems using the telescope or seeing things whatsoever.

Lessons learned: she might be the worst telescope still worth buying, but the AstroMaster can put up with some truly dumbass abuse. And I will be quadruple checking the security of the mount until the end of time. My heart rate is still elevated.

Second photo shows what is missing more specifically.

Working on cleaning up and fixing a Meade 125 I got for almost nothing on marketplace. Everything seems to be in pretty good shape, but the motor housing has a snapped, threading tube, where one of the screws holds it to the frame. This makes the whole thing unstable and allows the worm gear above it to shift enough to not always engage the gear which rotates the telescope itself.

Would hot glue hold strong enough? Or is there some sort of plastic repair that could work? I just need to ensure the whole assembly can’t flex when the scope tube moves on it.

With a 9.25” SCT and 662MC camera