First night with C100-ED on Saturn - breathtaking :)

[Totnesdave]

Got out to my observing sight up the hill at Follaton Arboretum last night, when the skies eventually cleared they were beautifully dark, giving gorgeous rich views of M13 .. to quote Dave Bowman..."My god..it's full of stars !"

Anyhow, spent some time on Saturn earlier in the evening between about 22.30 and 23:00 (later it had secreted itself behind an enormous tree from my chosen position)

I had fabulous pin sharp views with my barlowed 20mm, and my new Burgess 6mm Planetary, no false colour in focus and very clear ring shadow. I even accidentally barlowed the 6mm, not so sharp but a good view of the planetary disk.

Four moons were clearly visible to my eyes : I've attached a little cleaned up print out from Stellarium here.

On inspection of the print out, (compared to which my view was actually reversed left to right, I had a star diagonal in the whole time), the moons I could see according to the chart were Titan, Tethys, Rhea and Iapetus. I'm surprised, looking at that now, that I could only see one moon on the one side, which was surely bright Titan, maybe Titan/Dione were in even closer conjunction than shown on the diagram - my on site sketch shows the moon seen in that position to be more or less in the ring plane (as Dione) but also the brightest one (Titan) ? Not sure ... I am really puzzled

In hindsight, I wish I had checked back again nearer midnight when the sky really darkened, oh well...next time.

Early days, learning .... but in wonder of what this instrument shows me compared to its predecessor

Dave

[Totnesdave]

Ahh the beauty of pooled info, going by Earl_UK's pic from last night at :

http://stargazerslounge.com/imaging-planetary/105561-saturn-few-moons.html

I would say I was, as expected, seeing just Titan .. didn't look hard enough for Dione - when I squint at his photo, it does tend to fade out ...mystery solved

*phew*

Dave

[John]

Nice report Dave.

I had an ED100 a few years back - an original blue tube Skywatcher. It was a superb scope and perhaps the one that I most regret not owning any more (and I've solld quite a few !).

I'm out tonight here in North Somerset with my Vixen ED102SS which is similar to the ED100 / C-100ED except that it's focal ratio is F/6.5. With these long twighlights I find double / binary stars quite rewarding and the ED refractors give such satisfying views of those. If you want to test your optics / seeing try the close double Porrima in Virgo (Gamma Virginis). It's not too far from Saturn and about the closest double I've managed to split with my ED102.

Enjoy the rest of the night !.

[Plantins]

I too have a Skywatcher blue tube ED100, absolutely stunning optics on it, tested against a few others also. They are keepers, for the meantime anyhow!