Saturn and Jupiter 19/08

[IB20]

Well I’m still thinking about what I saw last night, those images will live long in the memory.

Whilst the seeing was OK, the transparency seemed to be perfect. I spent most of my time on Saturn with the 4mm TOE and 5mm XW, it was only when I chanced the 7XW that the Cassini division really stood out crystal clearly. The planetary disc became a beautiful sandy colour with plenty of Northern hemisphere banding showing, one of my best ever views of Saturn, just a beautiful picture.

Titan, Rhea and Dione were perfectly visible; Titan formed a nice triangular asterism alongside HD205470 and another point of light popping in and out of view. Checking this source of light on SkySafari showed this to be Iapetus or a 15 mag star, so I’m assuming it had to be Iapetus as I was only using the 3” Tak, which is astounding! When the atmosphere played ball, the tiniest pinprick of light just to the left of Saturn popped in and out of view, again SkySafari showing this as Tethys. Five moons with a 3” scope 🤯, just an incredible result. I’ve managed it with my dob but usually just get Titan, Rhea and Dione with the Tak.

I’d spent so much time marvelling away as Saturn that Jupiter had now risen over the tree ditectly to my SSE. With the 7XW still in place, I quickly switched to the extremely bright Jupiter. Wow, I couldn’t quite believe what I was seeing, the planetary disc appeared huge! The northern, central and equatorial bands clear as day.   I’m used to achromatic views of Jupiter so losing the planetary limb glare was a real eye opener, just blown away with how stunning it looked taking in the whole disc detail from edge to edge. Io, Europa and Callisto forming an isosceles asterism, a night of triangular moon formation!

I quickly tried a range of EP to optimise views and surprisingly the best views without any atmospheric softness were achieved at 95x with a 6mm. Using both BCO and Starbase Orthos yielded exceptional views. A huge brown barge was visible in the NEB and luckily the GRS or GOrangeS was slap bang in the middle of the SEB. It seemed to show a deformed shape from the swirling SEB arms that surround it.

Comparing 6mms, the Starbase seemed to give better colouration in the N&S bands than the BCO but the BCO seemed to show the central EB slightly better as it had a “colder” tone to it. I’m now thinking I would like a premium 6mm (no undercuts!) so if anyone has any suggestions I’m all ears.

I bought this Tak for grab and go planetary views and I can say I’m absolutely delighted with my first real planetary session of the season; it really is perfection. Imagine what it must be like when the seeing improves…

SkySafari maps attached.