Saturn never dissapoints

[John]

I've just come in from a fine session with Saturn and my Orion Optics 10" F/4.8 newtonian. It was a great opportunity to alternate between Nagler T6's, a Pentax XW10 and a Baader Genuine Ortho 7mm eyepieces. I'm going to write some proper notes of how the eyepieces compare but they were all good enough to show the planet and it's moons really well despite the proximity of a 97.5% illuminated moon.

I broke my own record of the number of Saturnian moons I could see - 6 this time around. Particularly pleased to find Iapetus (mag 11.1) because it's not on the same plane as the other moons and Enceledus (mag 11.7) because it's pretty faint with all the "moonwash" that was about. 1st time I've seen the latter in a 10" scope as well

I ended the session with a dose of extra magnification - 343x with the Nagler T6 3.5mm. The image held up well and I was just able to see hints of the Cassini Division at the ends of the ring ansae.

A very pleasing session and I felt happy with the performance of both the eyepieces and the scope.

Glass of wine time I think

[Doc]

Great report John and I look forward to your notes on this. Saturn is a fantastic object, with so much to see. To see 6 moons is fantastic in a 10" , I've seen an extra 2 but thats with 6" more aperture.

[lunator]

John

Nice report

I have seen a similar number of Moons in my 10" scope but you always have to check ou haven't just seen a faint star

Cheers

Ian

[DarkerSky]

Good stuff John. Iapetus is a really good spot.

How do you check the positions of the fainter moons to know which ones they are?

[bish]

I managed a good look at Saturn last night for the first time in a while. The rings were still a bit more closed up than I expected (I've only been observing for a few years so haven't seen a full cycle). Without wishing to repeat another post I've just made I was able to get alot more magnification and detail out of Saturn than Mars. Has to be in my top 5 favourite objects through a scope.

[Doc]

Good stuff John. Iapetus is a really good spot.

How do you check the positions of the fainter moons to know which ones they are?

I use CduC and it tells you which moons are where in realtime, dead easy to tell as well.

[John]

I use CduC and it tells you which moons are where in realtime, dead easy to tell as well.

Yep, thats how I do it as well - TBH I prefer CduC to Stellarium - it's not quite as "pretty" but it's very comprehensive and a bit more "feature rich" when you find your way around it