Saturn, last night.

[Beulah]

Amognst some of the Messiers, I spent a lot of time observing Saturn last light.

At about 11:10pm with good seeing and a clear window for about 30 seconds, I thought I saw a "shadow" flit over the "front" ring of Saturn, below the equatorial band. I was using a 2X TAL barlow and 10mm SW eyepiece.

Is it possible to observe this with an 8" (f/6 1200mm FL) Dobsonian? The only moon I can think that has the closest proximity to the rings is Prometheus or Mimas.

[kniclander]

it is possible to see some shadow transits through your scope but only the larger moons I would think (not mimas or prometheus) . Also, a shadow transit looks like a tiny black dot crawling very very slowly over the face of the plaent - not "flitting". One of the batter planetarium programmes (carte du ciel?) would probbaly show you the timing of the transits or you could google "saturn shadow transits" - there is lots of info out there...

[Leegsi]

This is a good animation to show where the moons are: Saturn's Moons

[Beulah]

Thanks for the link, another bookmarked!!

I have done a ten-minute interval snapshot of the moons, and can confirm that it was probably my imagination. It looks like Rhea was closest to the ring's edge last night, but not enough to cast a shadow perhaps.

Thanks again for the help. This place is exceptional, and that's coming from an internet forum veteran!