Saturn is up most of the night in July, setting around 4am. We are past the closest approach, called opposition, and we are now leaving it behind as we circle the Sun.
When the Sun has set, look straight up. You'll see two bright stars close to each other almost directly overhead. The one to the East (on the right) is Saturn. Its two give away features are its slightly yellower colour, and it doesn't twinkle like stars do. It will be directly overhead around 10pm. The 'head' of the constellation Scorpio is "looking" in the direction of Saturn too. Next year, Saturn's orbit will see it located even closer, and in 2015 it will be smack bang in its head.
- Face north (the sun sets in the west, a good clue).
- Looking north, the two or three brightest objects are Arcturus (low on the northern horizon) which is a slightly yellow star, then higher up you will see two about equal brightness. The left one is a brilliant white star - Spica, and the object on the right will be distinctly yellow and does not twinkle - that is Saturn.
What are some things I should be able to see in Saturn, cassini division is one, can also see cloud bands, how many moons and am I able to see shadows of the moons like Jupiter?
This depends on how good the seeing is, and your scope. You won't be seeing shadows transit across the disk or rings with ordinary amateur gear, though not beyond the 12" f/23 schiefspiegler that Barry Adcock had. That was a rather special scope, however and he often had excellent seeing.
Yes I saw it last night, fantastic!!
I've been waiting a year to find her, what a sight!
Note that I couldn't use my Barlow. Seems like everything I looked at with the barlow was a large out of focus circle with a black hole in the middle. Am I not using it properly or what can I try to see with it? I tried it with all 3 of my lenses too. I thought it was good for planets? It's the Bintel 2" ED.
Anthony, are you needing to pull the draw tube of the focuser all the way out or in?
If out, the solution is easy, and could mean one of two things: The easiest is to pull the barlow out from the focuser. I have the same 2" barlow, and its tube is some 12cm or so long, so you can pull it out at least half way. This will give you more focus travel. If pulling the barlow and EPs isn't still enough, you can get "extension tubes". They just set the EP, barlow, whatever, back out from the focuser.
Now, if you are rucking IN the draw tube, not much that can be easily done. Sorry.
Following Mental's advice, I got the barlow to focus better. I got a nice view of Venus's craters, since she's been quite bright in the sky lately.
Antony
Not sure what you mean by "Venus's craters"? The only body you would see craters on would be the moon. Venus is permanently covered in very dense clouds so views of the surface are impossible.
Ha, well there you go. Not sure what I was looking at then. It definitely wasn't the moon, I would have burned my eyes out without a moon filter, especially through a barlow, right, even if the moon had shrunk to that size miraculously somehow!
I'll have another look tonight, if I can get home early enough before it falls below the rooftops to the west...
HOLLY: Well, the thing about a Black Hole - it's main distinguishing
feature - is it's black. And the thing about space, your basic space
colour is black.
HOLLY: As it transpired, there weren't any Black Holes.
RIMMER: But you saw them -- you saw them on the monitor.
HOLLY: They weren't Black Holes.
RIMMER: What were they?
HOLLY: Grit. Five specks of grit on the scanner-scope. See, the thing
about grit is, it's black, and the thing about scanner-scopes...
Ha, well there you go. Not sure what I was looking at then. It definitely wasn't the moon, I would have burned my eyes out without a moon filter, especially through a barlow, right, even if the moon had shrunk to that size miraculously somehow!
I'll have another look tonight, if I can get home early enough before it falls below the rooftops to the west...
If it was a REALLY bright object in the western sky, then it is Venus, should show a partial crescent at the moment I think.
BTW, a barlow will not make objects brighter, it actually makes them appear larger which actually dims them. Obviously if you double the moons apparent size, you spread the light over 4 times the area so you dim it by 4 times.
Only a larger aperture will make an object brighter.
