The new version of Registax (Registax 5) has been officially released!

While still considered beta right now, it’s undergone a fairly extensive and lengthy pre-beta programme with a number of beta-testers, which I have been a part of.

There’s a huge number of improvements and enhancements in Registax 5. It’s much faster, which is great for lunar avi’s with a large number of alignment points. Make sure you check out the full manual and some processing workflow tips on the Registax site: http://www.astronomie.be/registax/

In the coming months, I’ll start documenting my own tutorials and workflow hints and tips for using Registax 5 to process planetary and lunar images.

Well done to Cor for a fantastic product, still free after all these years. His contribution to the amateur astrophotography community can not be measured!

There’s already been three transits of Titan across Saturn in 2009, and maybe, like me, you’ve been clouded out for most of them. All is not lost, however.

There’s still one more transit of Titan itself in 2009 (a grazing transit, with its shadow, on March 12 at 22:15 AEDST (11:15 UT)), followed by a number of shadow transit events.

With these shadow transits, Titan itself will not cross the disc of Saturn but its shadow will. The shadow transits are actually easier to observe due to the contrast of the dark shadow against the yellowish disc of Saturn.

Below I’ll list details of the Titan shadow transit events for the rest of 2009. Times will be listed in Universal Time (UT/GMT) and Australian Eastern Time (AEDST/AEST). If you live in other parts of the world, calculate your time by adding or subtracting your timezone offset to the Universal Time.

Please continue reading to see details and a simulation of the shadow transits in 2009.

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