Titan transit of Saturn tonight (Feb 24)

[Glenn Dawes]

Hi guys,

Don't forget! The weather is looking good in Sydney (but it still has plenty of time to go bad!)

Looking at Voyager, it has the transit commencing around 11:30 GMT, 9.30pm EST (10.30 Daylight saving), 7.30pm WST). Although it might start in twilight from WA you have plenty of time to see it with mid transit about 2 hours later. Egress is around 1.30am EST (2.30 DST).

Regards

Glenn

[Glenn Dawes]

Also forgot to mention. From Perth, Saturn would have just risen when the transit starts, but you have plenty of time.

Glenn

[pgc hunter]

thanks for the heads up. Weather in Melbourne is looking 50/50 atm.

Sydney has rain and storms forecast.

[matt]

Not looking too bad here in Brisbane.

I'm tempted...especially given the close proximity of Comet Lulin, which I've yet to capture.

[erick]

Crossing fingers.

[h0ughy]

with thinderstorms predicted this afternoon can do one of two things - clear the air and move out over the sea - or just stay cloudy. they are building at the moment. thanks for the heads up on the times. Might be a few tired people tomorrow!!

[pgc hunter]

clearing up nicely in Melbourne now. Time to work on my observing list :party:

[andrew]

Yep looking very nice indeed at the moment, not a cloud in the sky, hope it stays that way :):)

[Quark]

Hi Glen,

Weather is great out here at Broken Hill, been a cool day and clear as a bell, plan on imaging it every ten min's, hope to make an animation of the whole event.

Regards
Trevor

[Davekyn]

Scattered cloud around Toowoomba...will head out of town for tonights "events"...The Live Radar site does not look to good at the moment, but then again I'ts really not that good for cloud cover as a clear scan often results in cloudy nights.

[erick]

Yep, speccie-tacular - and even no smoke! :2thumbs:

[pgc hunter]

^^ it's looking pretty sweet atm :D There is some cloud to my south, but it appears to be thinning out. I just hope it doesn't clag over in the morning, but the forecast mentions "morning cloud with showers" :mad2:

In any case, the scope is going out tonight.

[mozzie]

weather is looking good here mid north coast fingers crossed clear night
mozzie

[Glenn Dawes]

I'm not sure of how observable this is, but there is likely to be a transit of Titan's shadow with egress around 30 mins before Titan commences (ie around 9pm EST (10pm DST). It will be higher in latitude cf to Titan (closer to the north pole with maximum transit (mid point, or furthest from the limb) about 10.10pm (11.10 DST).

Good luck guys.

Glenn

[iceman]

Not looking good here :( Completely blanket cloud.

[Lester]

Looks okay on Lower E.P with wind comming off of the sea. Got the 14" LX200 cooling now as it takes up to 2 hours for the primary to reach ambient.

[h0ughy]

and a couple of decaying storm cells.:sadeyes:

[cookie8]

Edge to edge clouds here in Sydney. I swear can feel some light spitting as well.Unable to set up yet fear of rain.Not good at all ,highly likely to miss it for a 3rd time.:sadeyes:

[mozzie]

clear skies here cooling scope down saturn just behind trees be up soon
mozzie

[erick]

Clear here. Saturn just above the fenceline but not in range of the dob as yet! Seeing OK. Cold!

[Glenn Dawes]

Hi Trevor,

Yes, Sydney is astronomically stuffed (around 9.45 I felt rain). Good luck, I can't wait to see your movie.

I'll just go back to grinding my teeth.:mad2::doh::sadeyes:

Glenn

[iceman]

Nothing happening here but clouds :(

[h0ughy]

same here, though there are a few clouded stars

[iceman]

I had them before too, but they're gone now.

I'm off to bed, kicking and screaming. I'll set the alarm for an hour or two and see if it miraculously clears, but it's not looking promising :( :(

[h0ughy]

here is the current view over us - just pack it up now - nothing to see except cloud right the way back to the range - bet it will be gone by early morning:sadeyes::sadeyes:

[Jay-qu]

all cloud down here in vic too :(

[erick]

Clear here. Watching Titan's shadow cross near the pole - just on the edge of the planet!

[edwardsdj]

It is an awesome sight!

I'm only able to glimpse it during brief periods of steady seeing between the clouds.

The shadow is much easier to see than I was expecting.

[edwardsdj]

Now I can see both the shadow and Titan on Saturn's disk at the same time!

This event is awesome!

[Stuart78]

Just Clouded over completly in Gippsland,Vic, clouds moved in at 10:40pm
it has been clear skies since around 2pm and it had to close in 20minutes before partytime,:sad::mad2:





Stu>>>

[mozzie]

wouldnt you know it light cloud coming in

[pgc hunter]

SAME HERE!!!! It was bloody clear all evening, and guess what, after I drag my 12" dob outside, it decides to cloud over, MELBOURNE STYLE, so I miss out on this event. NATURALLY

SCREW MELBOURNE AND ITS FREAKING EVIL PATHETIC CLOUDY HELLHOLE OF A CLIMATE :mad2:

Don't worry Iceman, you are far from being alone......... :mad2: ..... the perils of living ON DA COAST :mad:

Yes I am now co0mpletely drunk and have pigged out on some homemade fries....gotta do something to quell the rage.

I'm too angry to sleep. :mad2:

[pgc hunter]

You are not exactly far from me, and I'm bloody jealous. Good to see you are getting something atleast, while us coastal dwellers suffer big time. Atleast I can live in the comfort that more of these events will occur during this "edge on" apparition of Saturn.

[pgc hunter]

I am so furious.... literally.... yes I am hysterical like a 5 year old girl being denied her favorite toy....and I'm not kidding.

Atleast some people are not falling victim to the CRAP harassing Sydney and Melbourne :mad2:

[Chrissyo]

I got a look of it up here (after 3 months living down in Sydney without my telescope!) Just beautiful! It's the first time I've seen Saturn since its last season - those edge on rings are beautiful! The shadow was a neat touch. =)

[astroron]

Set Up early, but have had nothing but trouble:(first with Alt encoder giving wrong reading, fixed that then the Azimuth played up, couldn't fix it :mad2:
All the while intermittant clouds kept covering Saturn and Lullin so called it a night:mad2::mad2::mad2:

[erick]

Yep, Titan and shadow both visible in moments of good seeing! Brilliant! Not so good is intermittent clouds now. :sadeyes:

[pgc hunter]

I sympathise with you mate. I'm sorry to hear of your troubles :( Hopefully next time it all works out.



I'm glad you saw *something* atleast. I will now pour another glass to drink away my sorrows.

[andrew]

Very, very dissapointed... setup at 10:45 and it was partly cloudly...thought I'd at least be able to glimpse it through by 10" Dob which I'd brought outside. But nooooooo, Melbourne's fickled weather wins again... :( :(

I'd planned to photograph the event like many others too....but actually I did end up taking a few shots, here's the best of them : Link (http://img258.imageshack.us/img258/1899/img5682r.jpg)

Not happy Jan :( :(

[pgc hunter]

sorry to hear that andrew, you fell victim to the crap just like me, but it seems the entire SE / E coast fell victim to crap this evening. I;'m sure there will be a few more titan transits this edge-on apparition, which will be visible to even the coast suffering from our devestating climate. I'm not prepared to wait another 15 years to witness these rare events :mad2:

I hate melbourne's weather like hell, but basically the entire east coast was crap this evening.

I am now so drunk that I feel like throwing up.

[Davekyn]

hey Erick,
What set-up were you using? Your 12" Dob? If so, what EP & Barlow. I got to caught up with Lulin & although I had reasonable views of Saturn...X2 Barlow + 12.5mm; my 12" dob was facing into head winds giving too much shake. Guess I will look forward to transits with Jupiter...do they happen more often?

[erick]

Yes, the 12" dob. Apart from moderate seeing (mostly due to the low elevation I think), conditions were good until cloud cover commenced around midnight when I packed up. I would have liked to wait for the last two moons, but I couldn't even see them so doubted I'd pick up their shadows.

I finally settled on a 13mm Ethos (borrowed - I'm not that rich!) in a Televue 3x barlow - making around 350 magnification. I had been working with a 10mm Vixen LV in a GSO ED 2x barlow (300 magnification) which was not bad. I tried using the Vixen 10mm in the Televue 3x barlow, but that was just too much (450x). I was nudging the dob while twiddling the electric focusser so started to struggle with the limited field of view of the Vixen. So I pulled out the Ethos and put it into the Televue 3x barlow. Apart from having to stretch now to reach the dob, I was sitting so far from the OTA (not really but it was a tall stack! :D), the sharpness of the Ethos glass plus the much wider FOV made life much easier. In the moments of good seeing, Titan was very obvious against the planet with a strong shadow transiting across the polar region.

I spent a while earlier in the night tweaking the collimation with laser and cheshire, then checking it against close/double stars to see how good the separation was. Looked pretty good by the time I moved to Saturn.

[erick]

Yes, as I recall, single and double transits are fairly common. I've seen both a few times over the last two years. Much easier than Saturn as well. If seeing is good, you'll enjoy Jovian moon transits.

[pgc hunter]

Jovian transits are far more common. You see these regularly during any jupiter apparition, whereas for saturn they'll only occur during these edge on events, as the moons line up with our line of sight towards saturn only during when the planet's rings appear edge on.

[iceman]

Transit on Jupiter are even better this year thanks to us being in the ring plane again - we'll get Jupiter moon occultations and eclipses!

[Greenswale]

Went to Snake Valley to catch this, and for the first time in ages had a clear sky. BUT, as the time approached, the seeing went off.......

Despite that, had occasional reasonable views of the planet, rings' shadow and Titan shadow at 170x (as far as I can go at this time). Rewarding, but a bit disappointing - we all hope for 10/10 seeing for events like this!

Sky clouded over completely at about 1.00am, just as I was trying to find the Blue Planetary.

Very pleased with the new scope, when the seeing was reasonable, views were magnificent.

[Blue Skies]

Meanwhile, back in Perth:

Despite threatening cloud from an approaching cold front, ten ASWA members met at an eastward facing lookout in Whiteman Park to view the event. The shadow transit of Titan was already in progress when Saturn rose. Viewing conditions weren't the best, with a murky sky and Saturn low to the horizon for us, but we kept trying to spot the shadow after it cleared a cloud bank around 9.45pm. The biggest telescope on site was a 10" dob and several 8" SCTs and the best view we got was ...with a the ol' cheap Meade video eyepiece and a barlow in an SCT! We could just make out the shadow from time to time as a slight darkening near one pole, then Titan would appear briefly as a bright spot. No signs of the smaller moons at that level of quality. Still, all agreed it was a fun night, something out of the ordinary in a different location in the park than to where we normally meet for Lunatiks.