Enceladus challenge!

[badhex]

Hello all, 

After my weird time travel incident the other day (which is jsyva weird Stellarium bug) I was thinking again about my favourite satellite Enceladus, and how I would really love to observe it. I appreciate that generally it gets lost in the glare of Saturn since it is so minuscule, but since we're viewing Saturn edge on, I was thinking that perhaps dark skies, high mags, plus great seeing might make it possible - but what about aperture? 

With kit at my disposal currently I can do 112x with a ZS73, 2x Powermate and the 7.7mm end of the APM Superzoom, under Bortle 5 skies. So not completely ideal! But could this actually be possible? Would love to hear people's experiences and observing conditions where they have managed to see it! 

 

[John]

I've seen Enceladus with 10" and 12" inch scopes and I think I managed it with a 6" refractor when I last had one of those.

I've not managed it so far with anything smaller but to be fair I've not really tried hard to seek out the favourable elongations for the moon. I've had to take the views when they have been available with the mixed summer this year !

I tried with my ED120 last time out but Enceladus was close to the ring system so not visible in that scope on that occasion.

You probably know about this one but this tool plots the positions of Saturns brighter moons so you can see what might be possible and plan ahead:

Saturn's Moons (skyandtelescope.org)

Stellarium does the same thing of course.

 

 

Edited September 9, 2023 by John

[IB20]

Dione is quite bright and has been a real pain to observe recently when close to Saturn, even with the closed angle of the rings. Think Enceladus will be extremely tough, however at favourable elongation, I’d be disappointed if my 8” dob didn’t show it.

[badhex]

3 hours ago, John said:

I've seen Enceladus with 10" and 12" inch scopes and I think I managed it with a 6" refractor when I last had one of those.

I've not managed it so far with anything smaller but to be fair I've not really tried hard to seek out the favourable elongations for the moon. I've had to take the views when they have been available with the mixed summer this year !

I tried with my ED120 last time out but Enceladus was close to the ring system so not visible in that scope on that occasion.

You probably know about this one but this tool plots the positions of Saturns brighter moons so you can see what might be possible and plan ahead:

Saturn's Moons (skyandtelescope.org)

Stellarium does the same thing of course.

Cheers John, nice to hear it might at least be possible in a 6", perhaps I may need to wait until I have access to larger kit. Thanks for the link - I had forgotten about that tool, and actually my Stellarium is acting strangely so that will be very useful. 

[badhex]

3 hours ago, IB20 said:

Dione is quite bright and has been a real pain to observe recently when close to Saturn, even with the closed angle of the rings. Think Enceladus will be extremely tough, however at favourable elongation, I’d be disappointed if my 8” dob didn’t show it.

Yes, my thinking is it will be pretty tough with a small aperture. I don't have any scope larger than 6" though so I'll have to work with what I have! 

[IB20]

Does anyone have any dates for favourable positioning to spot Enceladus? Having never seen it I think I’d be very keen to give it a try!

[badhex]

I'm going to have a play with the tool @John linked to and see if I can find a good time for it in the next few days. Please report back if you also find anything! 

[John]

If your skies are clear, Enceladus will be reasonably well placed between 10:00 and 11:00 BST tonight. 10:30 seems to be the optimum. A  bit below Rhea on the Titan side of the planet and rings. 

 

[badhex]

32 minutes ago, John said:

If your skies are clear, Enceladus will be reasonably well placed between 10:00 and 11:00 BST tonight. 10:30 seems to be the optimum. A  bit below Rhea on the Titan side of the planet and rings. 

Noted, cheers John. So far skies are looking good, I'm going to powermate the APM Superzoom which should give me a bit of extra oomph (112x, so not exactly super high power 😂) and see how I get on! 

[John]

3 hours ago, badhex said:

Noted, cheers John. So far skies are looking good, I'm going to powermate the APM Superzoom which should give me a bit of extra oomph (112x, so not exactly super high power 😂) and see how I get on! 

Clouded out here 😒

Good luck, if you have clear skies still.

[badhex]

I'm out and it's clear, although the scope is still acclimatising, as are my eyes. Already running at 112x with the APM Superzoom and 2x Powermate. There might be a fine mist about as I'm picking up a nebulous glow around Saturn, and seeing is not exactly perfect. Titan is no problem, catching fleeting and faint visibility of Rhea but nothing else as yet! 

[badhex]

Just now, John said:

Clouded out here 😒

Good luck, if you have clear skies still.

Ah damn, sorry to hear. I replied at the same time as you! 

[John]

1 hour ago, badhex said:

Ah damn, sorry to hear. I replied at the same time as you! 

No problem - if you have it clear, go for it Joe 👍

[IB20]

Boo, was clouded out last night too despite the clear forecast. 👎🏼

We’ll bag it soon, I’m sure.

[badhex]

After sufficient scope cooling (warming!) and a brief detour to find Neptune, I got back to the job in hand, mostly using the PM and SZ 7.7mm combo (which is honestly just silly for a "planetary" EP 😂)

Iapetus was easy, but Rhea still not always present. Oddly, dropping down a few notches on the SZ to lower mags helped. I also tried the 24mm UFF with the PM giving me 36x - Super sharp, again Rhea now quite visible.

Tried for at least an hour at various mags but still no dice on Enceladus unfortunately. More mags, aperture or darkness needed perhaps, or better transparency which was generally good but clearly not quite right with this slight haze around the planet, and possibly contributing to hiding Enceladus. 

[badhex]

Not sure what everyone's weather is looking like for the next few days but Friday night could work - 1900 UTC. Enceladus placed all on his lonesome away from all the other moons:

[badhex]

Going to give it a go! Astro darkness is 2047 local time, so  get the scope out a bit before and start at approx 2100 local time (1900 UTC) 

[josefk]

Clouded out here but good luck!

[badhex]

There is some cloud here too but hoping I can dodge it enough to give things a go. Will report back!

[IB20]

For some reason I mis-remembered your post and thought you’d said 10pm. I’m out now and there’s not a cat in hell’s chance. Rhea, Titan and TYC 5807-0438-1 nice and visible though. 🥴

[badhex]

32 minutes ago, IB20 said:

For some reason I mis-remembered your post and thought you’d said 10pm. I’m out now and there’s not a cat in hell’s chance. Rhea, Titan and TYC 5807-0438-1 nice and visible though. 🥴

Ah apols, my post might have been confusing because I wrote UTC but the time offset in the screen grab is +2 hours as I'm in CEST at the moment.

I did get some clear skies BUT in a classic twist loads of lights on next door's properties (both sides!) meant that the lack of a moon tonight  was largely negated by local LP 😭

I did spend over an hour on Saturn nonetheless, but sadly no Enceladus. I think a 73mm F6 is really just not enough to cut the mustard! 

[badhex]

No more opportunities since I last posted and probably not for the next few days but will keep an eye and report back. I'm actually going to try and find a systematic way to find out when a) Enceladus is at apsis, b) the other moons are out of the way and c) it's actually night time on earth (in the UK, at least). 

I may post a new thread about that as it's a slightly different task than the observing itself.

Edited September 18, 2023 by badhex

[badhex]

I wrote into the Actual Astronomy podcast about a few topics including the Enceladus challenge and it got a small mention! 

Edited October 6, 2023 by badhex

[Nik271]

Currently I don't think I have much of a chance of success at Enceladus, the rings ar still too bright and Saturn too low in the haze. The second half of 2025 looks like the best time:

 

 

Edited October 7, 2023 by Nik271

[Jim L]

My wife, Monica, observed Enceladus last night using a Celestron 6SE SCT and looking through a SvBony 7-21 mm zoom eyepiece. We were observing from the Gulf of a Mexico coastline just north of the Mexican border. Seeing and transparency were listed as average in Astrospheric. This was the alignment at the time: