The re-appearance was completely clouded out from here in Mordialloc (SE Melb). I consider myself very lucky to have observed anything at all this morning. A small break in the clouds allowing me to see Saturn adjacent to the moon for a few minutes approx 15min before the occultation began.
I look forward to reading posts/seeing photo's from those that were able to observe it Regards, Dean
Bit of a stuff-up here. First up, Saturn wasn't visible through 10x50 binocs even quite close to the Moon. Went with the webcam and was getting Saturn very faintly. Then in a total brain-fade I decided to insert a Barlow a couple of minutes before the occultation - missed the whole thing while I was trying to find Saturn again & fiddling with focus!
Wasn't confident at all for the re-appearance as Saturn had been extremely faint in the live view and the seeing had gone to rubbish (transparency was cracking!). And I wasn't tracking and the mount motion is jerky. Nonetheless gave it a try and did get a roughie.
Attached are a pic of Saturn closing in on the limb, and another of it re-appearing on the darkened limb. Ah well, good practise for the next one...
There was considerable interest in this occultation of Saturn in our local club (WSAAG), and four members attended UWS Nepean Observatory from 8am to setup and if possible observe the occultation. There was a 12" Lightbridge with several eyepieces and a polarising filter; a 10" LX200 GPS, and an LX90-10 with a Flea 3 camera.
The weather was particularly dodgy, with some large patches of blue sky that came and went in quick succession, along with a lot of cloud and some glare.
Alignment of the Goto scopes was done using terrestrial references (level and north) and this was good enough to get tracking on brighter objects (the Moon, Rigel Kent, Saturn).
However the target planet was invisible visually, and only with some serious histogram expansion was it visible in the camera using an IR pass filter and a gamma of 2.5. The clouds obscured the Moon for the disappearance, and an inconvenient tree on the UWS property threatened the reappearance. The scope / cam was moved but tracking was not able to continue and the reappearance was not observed either.
The occultation was therefore not observed.
None of the communications (in AS&T, or online) made much mention of the difficulty of the observation, and in my opinion, observation of this occultation was not possible due to the lack of contrast of the target against the bright sky. It was however a valuable lesson in what can and cannot be done.
Attached is one small cropped image of Saturn at 9:35am between breaks in the cloud, and a shot of the terminator of the Moon at the same focal length (2500mm). From left to right, the three craters are Arzachel, Alpetragius, and Alphonsus. The improvement in contrast is due to the relative magnitudes - the Moon is mag -6 (apx) while Saturn is mag +0.6 (and Titan, the brightest moon of Saturn, is mag +9).
It is safe to say that this represents the most challenging occultation I have attended.
I was heartened to read your post..it wasn't me then completely at fault
Through a break in the cloud I attempted to view the occultation with first 9 x60s and then 20x80s but had no luck at all.
Clouded out totally by 11 so by the time I had a telescope set up it was pointless...
There was considerable interest in this occultation of Saturn in our local club (WSAAG), and four members attended UWS Nepean Observatory from 8am to setup and if possible observe the occultation. There was a 12" Lightbridge with several eyepieces and a polarising filter; a 10" LX200 GPS, and an LX90-10 with a Flea 3 camera.
The weather was particularly dodgy, with some large patches of blue sky that came and went in quick succession, along with a lot of cloud and some glare.
Alignment of the Goto scopes was done using terrestrial references (level and north) and this was good enough to get tracking on brighter objects (the Moon, Rigel Kent, Saturn).
However the target planet was invisible visually, and only with some serious histogram expansion was it visible in the camera using an IR pass filter and a gamma of 2.5. The clouds obscured the Moon for the disappearance, and an inconvenient tree on the UWS property threatened the reappearance. The scope / cam was moved but tracking was not able to continue and the reappearance was not observed either.
The occultation was therefore not observed.
None of the communications (in AS&T, or online) made much mention of the difficulty of the observation, and in my opinion, observation of this occultation was not possible due to the lack of contrast of the target against the bright sky. It was however a valuable lesson in what can and cannot be done.
Attached is one small cropped image of Saturn at 9:35am between breaks in the cloud, and a shot of the terminator of the Moon at the same focal length (2500mm). From left to right, the three craters are Arzachel, Alpetragius, and Alphonsus. The improvement in contrast is due to the relative magnitudes - the Moon is mag -6 (apx) while Saturn is mag +0.6 (and Titan, the brightest moon of Saturn, is mag +9).
It is safe to say that this represents the most challenging occultation I have attended.
Regards,
Tony Barry
Hmmm, maybe my shots aren't such a stuff-up after all... Haven't seen any other shots of the re-appearance yet but Colin Legg got some crackers of the disappearance.
I was heartened to read your post..it wasn't me then completely at fault
Through a break in the cloud I attempted to view the occultation with first 9 x60s and then 20x80s but had no luck at all.
Clouded out totally by 11 so by the time I had a telescope set up it was pointless...
Hi Narayan,
Rob H tried a lot of different things with the 12" lightbridge, but Saturn was invisible visually. The clouds and the glare were killers.
Rob K, your image is the best I have seen. Much better than anything we could put on here.
Thanks Tony. Hope Colin posts his - he did a timelapse of the disappearance and it is amazing. Detail is superb.
I too was disappointed in not seeing anything visually. At one point I was weighing up whether to view visually through the scope (4.5") or use the webcam - glad I went with the webcam, after reading your post.
I got this shot just before 8 am in Mackay, it was visible though the eyepiece of my 102mm f7 refractor, but not visible with binos, a lot fainter than a daytime jupiter. It clouded over again after this. Tried a few different exposures but it only just showed on a couple of shots. I think that light gathering capability was of no advantage on this event.
It was wall to wall cloud here in Brisbane so I missed it too. Tho from what you said Tony, it sounds like this would've been out of reach for my 10" scope even anyway.
This is the incredible timelapse taken by our Colin Legg that Rob K was talking about.....
Quote:
*Moon/Saturn Occultation*
The moon and saturn came together this morning for a daylight conjunction. Just on dawn, saturn slipped behind the moon.
So I took out my trusty old C8 telescope, attached a 5D2 running magic lattern raw video firmware and shot this through partly cloudy skies.
The 10" would have done the job if the sky was clear and without glare (= thin cloud). The situation is an extreme example of light pollution, and aperture is a known mitigant of light pollution. A red filter or an IR-pass filter (for a camera) would have made it better.
Colin Legg's excellent Vimeo movie shows what can be done, if the clouds co-operate. Thanks Suzy for posting the link
As it was, we were pretty well outgunned by the weather, but there's always a next time. For us here in Sydney, that's 14th May at about 9pm.
Regards,
Tony Barry
Last edited by tonybarry; 23-02-2014 at 09:38 AM.
Reason: added light pollution bit.
Saturn was easily visible in binos and 102mm refractor here in Mackay at 6.00am, just on sunrise but near on invisible by 8.00am. WA had the advantage of the early occultation with more contrast in the sky evident in the images and video taken in WA. I think that saturn is just too faint for full daylight viewing. Looking forward to may 14.
Rick
Here in Perth we had light clouds but as they moved through still allowed visibility of both ingress and egress. I had my 10 inch reflector and had no problems seeing Saturn in the early morning light.
I did not use any filters and had no webcam setup.
I did take a picture before occupation with my phone to MMS others, but as it is an older non-smart phone, I do not know how to get it off to post here.
If some one wants to PM me I can text it to you to post.
It was great to watch and fantastic to see Saturn "appear from the blue".
I could even follow it for a while after.
Being a newbie to astronomy the occultation of Saturn was something I was really looking forward to and it didn’t disappoint. What a magnificent view seeing it so close to the moon -fantastic! The image is still imprinted in my mind.
There were clouds drifting around the moon just as Saturn was disappearing so I missed seeing that last final moment, but I managed to get many clear views of it with my 8” DOB when it was really really close to the moon.
After Saturn disappeared I went in for breakfast and then came out again for it’s re-emergence (what a civilised activity astronomy is!). It was getting very bright now with the sun up but I managed to make out Saturn as it re-emerged amid all the glare. Within minutes it became quite difficult to keep watching as the sun was up now and there was lots of glare which made Saturn look devoid of colour. Roll on May for the next one!
As I said, I’m a newbie and a bit confused about the occultation. Everything I read says “the moon passes in front of Saturn”. But when you’re viewing the actual event common sense says that it’s “Saturn passing behind the moon”.
Saturn was east of the moon when it disappeared and west of the moon when it reappeared which seems to suggest it’s Saturn moving rather than the moon. If it was the moon moving then common sense says it would have to be moving west to east across the sky which is of course the opposite direction to what it is actually moving.
As I said, I’m a newbie and a bit confused about the occultation. Everything I read says "the moon passes in front of Saturn". But when you’re viewing the actual event common sense says that it’s "Saturn passing behind the moon".
Bill, "the moon passes in front of Saturn" is the right way round. During the occultation Saturn moved a fraction of an arcsecond relative to the stars, while the Moon moved 2'11" in RA and 2'42" in Dec.
As not seen in Sydney due to cloud.