Finally the skies cleared at an opportunistic time for me 17/05/14.

Of coarse by dark at this time of year Jupiter was heading downwards already and Mars was climbing for viewing, but the wait was still on for Saturn to peep up above the rooftops.

In the meanwhile M13 looked stunning as usual. Jupiter's red spot and banding was impressive, the tricky Mars was even playing ball giving some surface detail.

I managed to hunt the ring nebula down in Lyra pretty quickly at x 50 in the lovely 4.5 inch Astroscan. It looked grey but defined, with a hint of a thinning towards the middle. The 10 inch scope revealed a bright oval with mostly hints of washed out colours. I keep thinking that this object looks like a red blood cell floating in a glittery dark soup, I suppose it is far enough away to pretty much be comparable to microbiology. Averted vision definitely shows the ring structures contrast clearly when compared with direct viewing.

Saturn time. This is really what I have been waiting for even before I started saving for the scope. I was pleased to report that the viewing offered no disappointment. The seeing was a mixture of still then distorted and back again over 30 second or so cycles so getting the eye in was easy. The ring system was visibly wrapped around the planets disc which showed shades of muted creams and very light browns in lovely horizontal strokes, amidst perfect shadowed areas. The ring system showed graduated contrasts across its width with a clear break of black sky through the Cassini division. The moons were obvious and distributed in what looked like an unorganised way when compared to the perfect Galilean system. The sight was very impressive & I have viewed the planet again with the same results.

I am beginning to think the planets, moon, brighter nebula & globular clusters may need the bino-viewer treatment to really bring out the full effect, but even so, Saturn is pure eye candy. Everyone came out to look in the eyepiece that night, and not only peeped in but sat down and mumbled lots of things to themselves. Normally these same people are not that interested but Saturn brings out the astronomer in anyone & so it should.