Saturn's Crepe Ring

[Moonshane]

Hi all

The seeing in Manchester is excellent tonight and I have just been enjoying my best ever views of Saturn through my 6" f11 newt.

I have managed a rock solid image at 200x (8mm Radian) and even good at 267x with the Nagler zoom at 6mm.

During the observing I am as certain as I can be that I have seen the inner, so called Crepe Ring. Is this likely with the kit I have been using?

I'll be going out for more shortly!

[Revs]

OK you win. I'll drag my rig out and have a gander..

[Dixie]

Yep on a good night you can see the Crepe. It's a bit tough at the moment as the rings are still fairly closed - look for a charcoal gauze type effect. Seeing this side of the Pennines pretty poor tonight.

Richard

[Revs]

Well I'll be damned. I got the Dob out and the transparency is blumming awful but seeing is good! Very steady

[Moonshane]

nice one Paul

I am now 100% convinced I saw the Crepe Ring. Just as Richard describes and confirmed in my 12" dob where at the same mag, the image was more intermittent than with my 6" but better resolved when it popped into sharpness. My 7mm BGO (229x) seems to give the 'best' image in both scopes but as always a smaller image (e.g. 10mm and 160x) is also great and a bit sharper. This seems to support my 1.5x aperture in mm for max mag. Hope you see it too.

[John]

It's quite possible to see the Crepe ring on a night of good seeing Shane. I first saw it with an 8" SCT a few years ago when the rings were wide open. I've glimpsed it once or twice this year with my 6" mak-newt but it is made much more challenging by the current angle of the rings as Dixie (Richard) says.

Good spot

[Moonshane]

cheers John

Like many things I reckon it's something that once you get your eye in and know what to look for, you wonder why you never saw it before

[Stu]

I had a good night too, similar conditions by the sounds of it, very good seeing but transparency not the best.

Had my 4" apo out on the sphinx mount, not a combination I have used much but it was great, very steady. View was very clear at x197 using a 7mm type 6 nagler and the x2 power mate.

The elusive Cassini was there at last and there was some nice detail in the rings and on the planet. Could see the shadow on the rings to one side and possibly the crepe ring but not sure. The apo brought Cassini out better than the Mak.

Best night I've had for a while.

Stu

[Andrew*]

Nice one Shane,

Pretty sure I haven't seen the crepe yet. That's one thing to look out for as the rings open up.

Andrew

[callisto]

Yup, will give this a go once they open up

[JAO]

Shane,

I am sure you did see the Crepe ring, I have seen it in good seeiong in my 7" f10 Mak Cass.

I Had a good three hours observing Saturn last night myself . Transarency was poor and seeing was was only average here in S Norfolk. I could only get the power in the 10" f12.5 Mak Cass up to 244x. I could see the Crepe ring nicely, cassini division was very steady and I could also see some fleeting detail in the N. Eq belts. Also the moon Rhea was sitting nicely above the disc. Hoping to get out agaibn tonight, which will be th 6th night in a row, must be a record given our usual weather!

Adrian

[Moonshane]

Definitely one to have a go at in good conditions, especially if you have decent aperture. It was much more obvious in the 12" when the image pinged into sharpness.

[Revs]

Hope you see it too.

Not quite. As a rule, once the air has been disturbed by going over the Pennines, things aren't quite as steady here, but I wasn't heading out to the Peak District at 1am

I did just manage to see the the Cassini Division by eye for the 1st time, though. I was using the 12.5mm BGO and 2x Barlow giving 192x mag, but that was about the limit. Cheers for the heads up