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Saturn and Power.

alan potts

By alan potts
in Observing - Reports

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alan potts

alan potts

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Last night looked like one of promise so I thought I would wheel out the big canon and I don't mean a camera. Got set up and I am getting slowly quicker, if that make a modicum of sense. I tend not to mind setting up early as this time of year the barn sends a large shadow where I plant the Dob. While I was at it I thought I would collimate, so it was in with the laser. Now here is a reason why my entry to the Dob Mod hall of fame will be along one, I was turning away to align the main mirror and wondering why nothing was happening, I was un-doing the truss pole, and that was in broad daylight. One thing that I do find funny is how little work this scope takes to align when you consider you take it apart every time, a solid design I feel.

Anyway as I said earlier on in John's thread I got on to Saturn by using an old GPS and laptop, the former I used when walking and just kept it with me when travelling. I had it working with the permision of the Captain of a KLM Jumbo, I was always lucky to get the upper deck seats because of the amount of travel I did and Captain Van Halen was really interested, when going to the speed menu of device he commented, well at least the planes intsuments appear to be right we are doing 560MPH and we are about when it says we are, sadly all this type of contact with the crew is a thing of the past.

So Saturn was stunningly clear at X228 with the 10mm Ethos, I have never seen it better, the detail was so clear without the slightest shimmer in the Cassini division or anything and it wasn't even dark in any way shape or form. There was clear banding on the disc and subtle detail in the rings with all A B and C, clear to see. I could already see 4 moons as well and it was only 20 minutes since the sun set.

It is said by many that Saturn can take a bit of power so I gave it the 8mm Ethos and X286, this is maybe more than many use and I am in that bunch, it was amasing, not a ripple and sharp as a glass shard. At this point I thought it is time to throw the book at it, 6mm Ethos and X381, never been there before. The only diffence I really noticed was the planet moved across the field of view quicker and was larger, nothing was lost as I saw it and contrast could only get better as it got darker.

Many report that differences between top eyepieces are visible more so in larger instruments and this is the biggest scope that I am ever likely to own, (for now) so I started a bit of look at session between the 6mm D and E and without being boring and a full 15 minutes of intense study, could see no difference what so ever other than the obvious. I feel it would be DSO that will split these if anything was ever going to. This is of course nowhere near enough time to make an opinion count and it is not that easy judging anything using a Dobsonian, this really would need to be done over several nights for longer periods but on a quick look there was nothing obvious. The conditions were very good indeed, so stable, so I reached for the Pentax XW 5mm, this give X458 and it was still pretty sharp and nothing had really been lost in the size increase.

If you were going to use this amount of wood on the stove on a regular basis a case for the 4.7mm Ethos was a strong one, the trouble is the conditions will not allow this very often. The line that Calvin put in so many threads about the quality of a J Nichol's mirror is one of the truest things I have seen on site, what a mirror, there is no substitute for out and out quality and this just helps these top eyepieces deliver the goods. I don't understand much about mirrors but if over X400 cannot find them out, I guess there can't be too much wrong.

As it was starting to get mildly dark the image I was looking at started to fade, a glance up showed the clouds were coming to see me, just as the leading edge started to cover Saturn there was a noticable improvement in the disc details though sadly it didn't stay visible long enough to fully take them in. That was really the end to a short but stunning session, I hope your skies can take this power bashing to-night. Only about 30 minutes from start to finish but superb seeing and I would sooner have that than 3 hours of rubbish.

Alan

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John

John

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Great report Alan :smiley:

When the conditions are great and the scope optics on song Saturn can really reward high magnifications. You start to get those "just like the photos" moments which stay in the mind and drive the hobby along for us :grin: 

One of the things that I love about the 6mm Ethos is that all the the detail is there right up to the field stop, if I care to let the the planet do the full drift across.

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alan potts

alan potts

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Great report Alan :smiley:

When the conditions are great and the scope optics on song Saturn can really reward high magnifications. You start to get those "just like the photos" moments which stay in the mind and drive the hobby along for us :grin:

One of the things that I love about the 6mm Ethos is that all the the detail is there right up to the field stop, if I care to let the the planet do the full drift across.

With my skill levels that is what I have to do, there is no doubt that the 100 degree plus eyepieces were made with Dobbers in mind

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John

John

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With my skill levels that is what I have to do, there is no doubt that the 100 degree plus eyepieces were made with Dobbers in mind

Thats my technique as well, "nudge, drift, nudge, drift......". I don't try and keep the object in the centre of the FoV which is why well corrected wide field eyepieces are such a boon to me.

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alan potts

alan potts

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 What a difference a day makes, last night back on the ringed one at X228 and there looked to be 3-4 Encke gaps which of course there wasn't. Jumping around like a fire cracker, even overhead the seeing was nothing to shout about.

Alan

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Special K

Special K

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That's a whopping amount of power and great to read about it! Pretty rare to pull out all the stops and not get that "I told you so" feeling when the view is all mushy from too much magnification. Great imagery in the report, thanks!

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