Saturn 19th - 20th Feb 2010

[chrisrnuttall]

Here is a sketch from Friday night 01:00 to 02:00

weather was calm, about zero degrees, mild frost forming, thin high patchy cloud, seeing good.

Saturns disc seems much paler than last year, and the belts have less contrast with the zones than i have seen before. Having looked at webcam images from this year this does seem to be a genuine change, I think.

Cassini was fairly easy at the ansae, the rings are tan coloured, with ring A being darker than ring B. The C ring was glimpsed at the ansae, and seen as a pale grey line running across the disc. The rings shaddow on the planet and vice versa were also seen.

The NEB was pale tan in colour, and the NPR was pale brown. The EZ was white. The SEB was very pale yellow. No more detail could be seen on the disc.

I used a power of 375X and tried dark blue, and yellow filters to help bring out detail.

Saturn was 19 arcseconds and 36 degrees up.

[dweller25]

Very nice drawing Chris.

[Towa]

Excellent drawing Chris.

The features on Saturn at the moment do seem much more subtle

than in previous years.

[DarkerSky]

That's a fantastic sketch Chris. One of the best I have seen in a long while. I had my scope trained on Saturn last night with a dark blue filter. I could pick out the NEB and shading towards the NPR. I also got the briefest of glimpses of the SEB. Unfortunately my view was hampered by trees, so I don't think I got as much out of it as I could have done