I was expecting great things... Am I going backwards?

[palebluedot]

Out for a couple of hour this evening, after collimating for the first time.

Seeing - not that great

Target - Saturn.

Thru the 25mm, a bright elongated point. With 18mm clearly made out rings and pretty crisp. 7.5mm pretty fuzzy, no detail from the surface or rings, but could make out the separation of the two. Defocussing clearly showed I had collimation issues.

Recalling my last observation of Jupiter in Feb (before attempting collimation). 7.5mm was crisp, clearly making out the cloud bands and Galilean moons, added 2x barlow and sharpness was lost, but the bands were there. Should I be expecting similar surface detail from Saturn?

I can feel a "read astro-baby's guide to collimation" coming on (and I will), but it would be handy to know what I should be able to achieve.

Any advice welcome.

[lukebl]

Not sure, but I've just given up due to poor transparency and terrible seeing. Saturn was just a fuzzy blob, and I can normally easily make out the Cassini Division. So you can probably put it down to bad atmospheric conditions.

[palebluedot]

Thanks Luke. I might sleep a little easier now

[Nexus 6]

Hi Lee, I would agree with Luke, poor atmospherics would give a poor image when oberving especially at high powers.

I have also had mixed results when viewing Saturn, at best its been superb though, 13mm Televue Nagler giving 180x.

Saturn is not as good an object to observe colour wise as Jupiter, I normally can make out some faint hints of orange amongst the magnolia like overall tone but not too much more although it can show difference's when there is some storm activity which I have yet to observe, very faint banding is also visable, again not as impressive as Jupiter's.

It wil be possible to see Titan and a few more of its moons but its important to remember it is smaller than Jupiter and further away too, having said all that its truly a magnificent sight

Hope you get a better look at it soon

[tbird]

You're not the only one, Lee. I've not had a really clear view of Saturn yet.

I think Jupiter was a lot easier target and got good views from the off, even in early evening before dark.

I'm going to try Saturn after midnight, the sky at 1am this morning was a lot clearer than earlier.

[Trull]

If you are on a Dob and are not confident collimation is right... no surprises things look fuzzy. Collimation (with a laser tool) is quick and easy, and you need to do it every time you get your Dob out... Unfortunately its hard to describe in words, but youtube has a lot of videos showing the methods. Good Luck!

[palebluedot]

Good Luck!

Thanks I am going to need it. I am just working my way through Astro_Baby's guide. I have a laser collimator, and the beam was spot on last night. It appears that there is a lot more to collimation than I thought. My secondary was way out!

[Trull]

Normally on my 12" LightBridge the secondary needs a little tweak everytime, occasionally the primary as well. I bought Bob's Knobs to make it as painless as possible. Now it takes literally 2 minutes... have fun! Also once you are confident you can then pride yourself on the accuracy and let others see how straightforward it is, which feels great!