Saturn 15th April

[Moonshane]

Hi all

Had a brief look at Saturn last night for around half an hour and despite the low elevation, the views were intermittently pretty good when due south. Managed to see some good colour (purplish to my eyes) and banding on the disc and also the Cassini Division was 'almost solidly' seen for quite a good period. This is an object which, no matter how many times I actually see it, makes me gasp when the seeing clears.

For only the second time I managed to see the third ring, the inner so-called crepe ring or C ring which is a fine misty grey shading between the inner ring (the B ring) and the disc.

All with my 6" f11 newt and 8mm / 10mm Radians (200x and 160x).

Hope you all got good views too.

[cotterless45]

Yep, certainly has been stunning. Saw colour and C ring at x240 with Barlow collimated

10" Lightbridge.

Newtonians are palnetary killers given seeing conditions and collimation, nice.

Nick.

[DarkV0!D]

Went out last night and saw it too, color and the rings included! Even took some pictures which I will post once I'm done processing.

[John]

Nice report Shane

The Crepe ring can be pretty ellusive and seeing it shows good seeing conditions, collimation and observing skills I reckon

[Moonshane]

cheers matey - the f11 nature of the 6" helps with the collimation I reckon. The fact the planet was low too means I got lucky I think. It's truly spectacular when any of the three decent planets (Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) goes sharp even for a second or two and intermittently. It makes the other fuzziness worthwhile!