Saturn and Terby's White Spot.

[mikeDnight]

Not really as exciting as it might sound as Terby's White Spot is nothing but a contrast effect, but at least it made you look. 

[jock1958]

Love all your sketches Mike regardless of Terbys Spot!!

[Naughty Neal]

Wonderful sketching and description.  

[Richard N]

Amazing detail. I can’t see most of that with my 8 inch reflector. Impressive. 

[John]

Great observations and drawing Mike 

I had similar views with my 130mm refractor. I have not heard of the effect called Terby's White Spot before. I will look out for it when I'm next observing the ringed planet.

Those glimpses of the crepe ring are hard to get with the rings at the angle they currently are.

[dweller25]

That’s a great observation Mike, I was out just before you but had very poor seeing through the DZ  😕

Edited September 5, 2023 by dweller25

[JeremyS]

Super obs, Mike 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[mikeDnight]

Thanks everyone for your kind comments. ☺️

3 hours ago, Richard N said:

Amazing detail. I can’t see most of that with my 8 inch reflector. Impressive. 

2 hours ago, dweller25 said:

That’s a great observation Mike, I was out just before you but had very poor seeing through the DZ  😕

Richard N and Dweller25, its almost certainly local seeing that's the issue, and with Saturn still relatively low and with the rings only at around 7° tilt, its challenging If there's residual heat or turbulence. I was using a Maxbright binoviewer, which helps for me at least, to tease out the more subtle detail. Fortunately for me, Saturn was in a regular sweet spot for planets when viewed from my site. Some other regions of the sky, particularly west of the meridian, are far less generous in terms of definition. I'm pretty confident the DZ will show everything depicted in the sketch Dave. I'll have to compare the DZ and give it a chance to shine.

3 hours ago, John said:

Great observations and drawing Mike 

I had similar views with my 130mm refractor. I have not heard of the effect called Terby's White Spot before. I will look out for it when I'm next observing the ringed planet.

Those glimpses of the crepe ring are hard to get with the rings at the angle they currently are.

 Hi John. I've observed Terby's White Spot many times over the years, though its been a long time since Saturn has had my attention. There are some comments about it in Alexanders book SATURN, and in SATURN and how to observe it, by Julius Benton if you have either in your personal library. Alexander's book is a real classic, but i found Bentons book to be very good too.

Last night the Crepe looked like a very subtle smokey inner edge to the inner B ring and could have been missed if the image hadn't been in sharp focus. It's worth keeping an eye out for it. I couldn't see it on my previous session with Saturn on the 24th August, yet in my mind the planet appeared better then than last night. Crazy hobby, I'll never understand it!

Edited September 5, 2023 by mikeDnight