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Viewing Saturn through Binoculars


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Good evening, all.


 


A question for the more experienced hands: does Saturn appear ever so slightly oblate when viewed through binoculars, specifically 10x50?  


 


I took advantage of the excellent weather conditions last night and spent approximately 90 minutes outside, enjoying the sights.  I managed to locate M31 (Huzzah!) and then turned my attention to Scorpius; thereafter, I turned my attention to Saturn and Mars.  I spent several minutes switching back and forth between the two, and I swear that Saturn seemed slightly flatter at the poles and elongated at what I would assume is its equatorial region than Mars did.  Was this due to the wobbling of my hand-held binoculars and my overactive imagination, or do the planet's rings affect its appearance through binoculars?


 


I appreciate any insight you may have.


 


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I would have initially doubted it however with the rings at the angle they presently are then it would be how Saturn would appear.

Not exactly sure but didn't Galileo see "ears" and agreed he used a scope but it would have been low power and poor optics. Modern 10x50's would easily I suspect outperform what he used, he would have had darker skies however.

Part also depends on the conditions - how dark and the binoculars (and your eyes).

Where I am it is not dark, also the binoculars are reasonably good but I have looked through Leica's that you would half expect to show the rings of Saturn, every moon and the individual ice crystals. They were GOOD!

Eye will come into it a lot, you find quickly how bad your eyes are when speaking to kids, 4, 5, and 6 years olds can see things I have forgotten exist. My eyes fall ino the "have seen better days" catagory.

Would I guess it falls into the catagory of "maybe", especially with Galileo's observing of Saturn and what he reported as seeing, So I would say some people might other will not.

Next time at somewhere dark I may give it a go.

M31 is best viewed in binocularsa I find, it is bigger then most appreciate.

I assume that you do not live in central Tokyo.

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ronin,

Thank you for your response.  The sky was quite dark: the view was toward the west, and where I live, which is not anywhere near Tokyo, the only thing west of our town are mountains and their resident bears.  My eyes have been craptacularly bad since childhood, but in my mind at least, Mars was decidedly more circular than Saturn.  I remembered what I have read about Galileo's description of his initial observation of Saturn, and that made me think that perhaps I was seeing some evidence of the rings.  In this instance, "maybe" is good enough for me!

:-)

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Heya Kainushi.

I also found Saturn oblate shaped when viewed through my 9x50 RACI finder. I thought, as Ronin stated, that it appears oblate cause of the current position of the rings.

Rune

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Rune,

Good Morning, and thank you for your response.  I am happy to hear that someone else has noticed Saturn's shape; I would hate to think that my imagination is getting the better of me.

- Kainushi

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I have suspected oblateness, but wasn't entirely sure that it wasn't "averted imagination" getting the better of me. However, i have seen, and had confirmed by others present, dark space (approx 5x3.5 arcsec) between the ansae and the disc with my 15x70 BA8 (mounted), so we should deduce that  oblateness-detection is possible at 10x with similar quality eyes and optics on a 36x16(-ish) arcsec object. it is certainly theoretically possible for the human eye to detect oblateness in a 360 x 160 arcsec (6xnearly-3 arcmin) image.

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Steve,

Thanks for your positive response.  The day after I made my post my tripod gave up the ghost: it literally fell to pieces in my hand.  I went out to buy sturdier replacement and finally picked up an L-adapter; I was determined to double check what I had seen that evening, but through properly stabilised binoculars.  Since then, of course, we have been socked in by 100% cloud cover.  Alas.  :-(

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