Another happy Saturn viewer

[JamesC]

I've had my 12" since late 2008 now but this is the first time I've had a good look at Saturn with a decent eyepiece (radian) and the rings at a good angle. It was great!

I headed out on Saturday evening to try to see Barnard's loop - I failed. Couldn't resist looking at M42, M81 and M82. Also had a look at the really nice grouping of M46, M47 and NGC 2423. M46 contains a tiny planetary as a bonus. Got back late from this expedition and was planning to ****** an hour's sleep before heading out to do the spring galaxies and Saturn. I had a bit of a late night on Friday so in the event I couldn't raise myself from bed until about 2.30 - the galaxies can wait.

I hadn't bothered to check exactly where Saturn was, but luckily it was obvious. There were two candidates in the vicinity of Virgo - one was blue, obviously Spica, the other warm, obviously Saturn. I confirmed I was correctly oriented using the maxim "Arc to Arcturus, then speed on to Spica".

I popped in my 6mm radian (250x) and was very relieved that the seeing was good and it had been worth getting up. I could see a notch on one side of the rings where they passed into the shadow of Saturn. The rings were greyer than the planet and I could easily follow them across the disk. The Cassini division could be seen in moments of good seeing in the ansae (sp?). There was a dark cloud band that ran across the planet in the approximate position where the rings would pass behind the planet. I drank in the view until my knees hurt. Just when I was thinking about pushing up the magnification a bit more the image started to bobble. I looked up from my scope and - oh no - some high cloud was moving in. I tried pushing up the mags a bit more, although to be honest it was a waste of time. With cloud moving in I couldn't resist swinging over to M13 to finish the night.

I snatched another couple of hours sleep before my alarm went off for me to go hiking - no chance! I'm whacked, but happy. I'm looking forward to catching Saturn again, perhaps at a more civilised hour.

[Nexus 6]

Well done James! both Saturn and M13 are great to observe and can take a good deal of power when conditions allow!

Guess you lost out the next day but I am sure it was worth the loss to observe some nice objects, well its not like we have had many opportunities to get out there!