Transit of Titan

[timwetherell]

Was very pleased to be able to see the transit of Titan's shadow across Saturn yesterday evening. Saturn is very low at the moment but the seeing in the dusk was fairly reasonable by UK standards. I believe I managed to capture this photographically too using eyepiece projection and a DSLR, below is a stack of 3 of the best frames. There are a few more of these transits visible from the UK but Saturn is getting increasingly low so they will be very challenging! 

[josefk]

Very very cool! Not even a little bit jealous...

 

 

...oh alright i am very jealous 🤢 of the observation and the sketch 👍

[timwetherell]

8 minutes ago, josefk said:

Very very cool! Not even a little bit jealous...

 

There's another one at dusk on January 23 might be worth a go. I found that the it was most easily visible in the earlier stages. By the time mid transit happened Saturn was lower and the seeing much worse. It's frustrating Saturn being so low ATM, I saw one of these in Australia years ago with Saturn almost at zenith and it was quite amazing, perfect shadow disc easily visible. 

[geoflewis]

An excellent drawing and a great result with the DSLR eye projection too.

[GordonD]

Nice sketch and well done for catching the transit. Reading round it seems many people tried for it but not many succeeded.

[timwetherell]

45 minutes ago, GordonD said:

Nice sketch and well done for catching the transit. Reading round it seems many people tried for it but not many succeeded.

I think so much comes down to seeing. Early evening low in the west doesn't generally bode well for clear still air

 

[John]

9 hours ago, timwetherell said:

 I found that the it was most easily visible in the earlier stages......

That is just what I found as well Tim.

Nice report, sketch and photo of this event. The photo seems quite close to the visual view I was getting - the moon shadow was a lot less distinct than the Jovian ones !

I found the shadow popped in and out of view as the seeing varied. Challenging observing I thought but that's all part of the fun 🙂

[Zermelo]

35 minutes ago, John said:

the moon shadow was a lot less distinct than the Jovian ones

That might have been what stymied my attempts, in part. I think even the rendering on Skysafari was more diffuse than the Jovian equivalents.

What causes this? Distance from the planet? Yet Titan is barely any further from the cloud tops than Ganymede is from Jupiter.

[John]

36 minutes ago, Zermelo said:

That might have been what stymied my attempts, in part. I think even the rendering on Skysafari was more diffuse than the Jovian equivalents.

What causes this? Distance from the planet? Yet Titan is barely any further from the cloud tops than Ganymede is from Jupiter.

Good question !

I don't know the answer I have to confess. Maybe the cloud tops on Saturn have different properties to those at Jupiter ? The distance from the Sun perhaps - less intense illumination causing a less intense shadow ?

 

[timwetherell]

1 hour ago, John said:

the moon shadow was a lot less distinct than the Jovian ones !

I found the shadow popped in and out of view as the seeing varied. Challenging observing I thought but that's all part of the fun 🙂

It was really difficult to see. This time easier than on December 22nd, but still only visible perhaps 10% of the time. Back in perhaps 2008 ish, I saw one in Australia with a smaller scope and it was very obvious indeed, so I think it's all down to seeing

[timwetherell]

This was my sketch from the 2009 transit using a 5" refractor in Australia. In my notes it says that I even tried stopping down to 60mm (I was interested to see if it would have been visible with the scope I had as a kid) and it was still clearly visible. Though interestingly enough that was using a modern eyepiece. With an old 0.95" Huygens 5mm, it wasn't visible. 

[josefk]

That’s great having the two sketched records of it. Fabulous. 

[IB20]

19 hours ago, timwetherell said:

There's another one at dusk on January 23 might be worth a go. I found that the it was most easily visible in the earlier stages. By the time mid transit happened Saturn was lower and the seeing much worse. It's frustrating Saturn being so low ATM, I saw one of these in Australia years ago with Saturn almost at zenith and it was quite amazing, perfect shadow disc easily visible. 

This is certainly what I found too.

Your image is a really good representation as to what I observed with my scopes. It’s superb you have a record of previous transits. I tried using my 76mm alongside my 200P and was fairly confident I could see an occasional blotch, so feel it’s very much seeing dependent.