Venus and Saturn this morning

[Hypernova]

I was awoken early this morning and peering out the window revealed that clear skies had finally arrived. With that I decided to get up and try observe the two morning planets which I know at this time are fairly high up in the south east. And indeed they were, looking out of the front door, Venus was shining away brightly above the houses to the south and Saturn looking quite indistinct above and to the right.

The 'scope was immediately placed on the front and the cap taken off to begin cooling. There was not enough time given for the 'scope to cool properly so there were persistent tube currents throughout the session which hampered the viewing considerably. The seeing was pretty good, there was minimal twinkling of the stars and the transparency was good, no clouds or fog to obscure the sky.

When in the eyepiece Venus showed a beautiful waxing crescent phase which was amazingly bright as always. I found that using a 13% moon filter toned down the glare quite a bit and made viewing more comfortable. I went through a range of magnifications to try and get the best view. In the end I found that the 9mm Ultrawide and the 25mm plossl provided the most pleasing view, the plossl edged it in my opinion though due to the wider field and the lower magnification which just resolved the crescent phase nicely. I found that I couldn't get a clean focus due to the tube currents which made viewing a bit less pleasing but I know for next time to leave the scope out for longer, that really wasn't an option this time due to the rushed nature of the session.

I next went on to observe Saturn which I hadn't looked at since it's opposition back in the Spring. I noticed that the rings have now opened out nicely which allowed me to view the gap between them and the planet. Unfortunately because of the tube currents I could not get sharp focus again and the fine detail such as the Cassini Division eluded me for this time. I did manage to see the moon Titan which was off to the right of the disk as viewed through the dob.

That was all that I managed to see this morning. By the time I packed up at around 7 after about 20 minutes observing, dawn was encroaching and the sky was beginning to lighten considerably.

[russ]

Nice report Tom. Saturn's rings really opening nicely again now. I managed to get a glimpse of Cassini a couple of weeks ago when the seeing was good but the following day no sign of it. Hoping tomorrow morning i may get a glimpse again.

Venus is looking beautiful at the moment.

[Rob]

What sort of time would I need to be out to enjoy this?

[oldfruit]

Sounds like you had a nice morning for viewing. Shame the scope had not cooled enough. I must get out in the mornings with my scope myself soon to catch these two.

[Hypernova]

What sort of time would I need to be out to enjoy this?

I was out from around 6:30 until 7 when the sky was still reasonably dark.

[Lazzy]

Great report - virtually identical to my session that just finished. My first views of both Saturn and Venus - definetely worth getting up so early and sitting out in the snow for an hour or so. Now for some breakfast...

[umadog]

Yep, me too! I did the same thing this morning. But I'm on Long Island so it was 5 hours after you!

I tried leaving the OTA in the car overnight to cool but it still had some residual tube currents when I set up. Nevertheless, I cranked up the power to 300x and got glimpses of Cassini's division. Also saw Titan, Rhea, Dione, Tethys, and Iapetus (which I only later realised was a moon as it was so far from the plane of the others). May have caught a glimpse of faint Mimas, but I only looked at Stellarium after the event and wasn't on the look out for it. The sky was brightening quite rapidly so limiting mag was down. Encladus was transiting Saturn as I set up so I missed that too. Next time I'll check up on Stelarium before going out!

[GrahamS]

I saw Saturn for the first time, amazing. Also, Venus very bright. Well worth the early start.

[Nexus 6]

What sort of time would I need to be out to enjoy this?

Hi rob, do you use stellarium? if not its really worth having as it will enable you to see what is visable from your particular location

http://stellarium.org

Tom, nice report on the morning beauties.

Alan