Saturn

[andys]

just seen Saturn for the first time! Yeah I know, you're like "big deal" - I have a lot of trees around me and haven't worked myself up to staying up till the early hours yet.

i feel like I've become a small boy again!

[ballaratdragons (Ken)]

That's great Andy!

First time sightings are always special. Enjoy!!!!

[leon]

It is that first time that you never forget, it certainly is a wonderful experience, and now there are so many other objects worth waiting for.

Cheers leon

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Saturn is awesome.
Did you notice 4 of his moons lined up? I saw 3 on one side and 1 on the other earlier tonight.

[chunkylad (David)]

Well done!

As jjjnettie says, Saturn is awesome.

Enjoy the hunt for the other 6 planets!!! It's a real achievement each time you see one for the first time.

Good luck

Dave W

[toetoe (Peter)]

Good on ya andy, it is a great sight. Every time i look at Saturn it's like the first time every time..

[iceman (Mike)]

Saturn is never a "big deal" moment.. it's always special.. the first time is just amazing, and something you'll remember forever.

It's even better in larger aperture, well-collimated scope when it's 40deg or above.

[davidpretorius]

Originally Posted by andys

i feel like I've become a small boy again!

yup, that is the beauty of a dymanic night sky, every now and then a comet, great conditions to see the casini division on saturn, the grs on jupiter, iridium satelites and every now and then the initernational space station and the shuttle locked together shining brighter than any star (except the sun of course)

[andys]

Originally Posted by jjjnettie

Saturn is awesome.
Did you notice 4 of his moons lined up? I saw 3 on one side and 1 on the other earlier tonight.

Well, I think I did - just appeared as little dots on either side - it was only 200x.

What would be the best eyepiece for viewing Saturn then?

[davidpretorius]

Originally Posted by andys

Well, I think I did - just appeared as little dots on either side - it was only 200x.

What would be the best eyepiece for viewing Saturn then?

well, so many answers to this one.

with a planet, as high a magnifiction as you can go given the conditions.

In a nutshell, you need great seeing to push past 200x. I have a 4mm eyepiece so in my 1250 focal length scope gives me say 300x (1250 divide 4)

I actively cool my primary mirror so that it is the same temperature as the ambient air temperature. this takes away the boundary layer problems (think of looking at the roof of a car on a hot day and seeing the shimmers!)

You then are in the lap of the gods.....is the surrounding area still shimmering, ie are roof tops radiating heat, are you near your brick house which is also radiating heat.

A lot of us are starting to image jupiter at 4am, due to the fact that the atmosphere is generally a lot stiller, less heat radiating off objects etc. The magnification is up around 1600x or more.

The other factors are jetstream, ie high level, high speed winds and also the prevailing wind hitting objects like hills and mountains. ie if the air is coming from a certain direction, then if it hits a mountain it tends to shoot up vertically and then eddy as it moves over the mountain and beyond.

Ideally, an island like the bahamas is great as the air comes off the ocean (no mountains) and is very still. The bahamas also do not have the jetstream annoying it as much.

So at the end of the day, you will have nights when you an ramp up the magnification and other nights where you wished you never bothered at all. Some of it is in your control, the rest is in the lap of the gods!

Welcome to highs and lows of Astronomy (hence why we go a little crazy around here)

For

[huckabuck]

ahhh saturn, thats what got me hooked. i anticipate the rearrival each year the day(night) after it gets lost in the sun. i spent three hours attached to that one piece of sky last night. and i been lookin' at it for 9 years. it just don't get old.
keep lookin' up andy.

[Ric]

Hi Andy, Saturn is always a great view. I can quite happily spend half an hour or so each time I get my scope out just observing it and the moons.

Cheers

[NewToStars (Jase)]

ooh saturn.. first time i saw it in my 8" dob i was truely amazed. from inside our house i could make out 3 of the moons.

then i went to dark sky's. barlowed a 10mm EP (240X zoom) and i could make out the casini division. everyone at the dark sky knew what i was looking at... all night i think .

it truely blew me away.. fingers crossed at the next dark sky meet this month i can stay awake and wait for Jupiter.. fingers crossed it's high enough in teh sky.

due to clouds that night i tried 400x zoom with a 6mm barlowed, but conditions weren't good enough. this is pushing my scope to the max though.

[WadeH (Wade)]

Saturn is never a "big deal" event. Even now every time I see it I still get that WOW factor, and I just love showing off to friends for the first time.

[DobDobDob (Ron)]

Originally Posted by andys

just seen Saturn for the first time!

I saw it last night for the first time also, using 20x80 binoculars, it looked magnificent for me despite having to fight rolling clouds that came in waves at about 1.00am from my near Sydney location.

To me it looked like I was viewing the underside of the planet and on an angle, this made the bottom of the planet from my perspective solid, whereas the top was in shadow and not visible. The planet was elongated in the centre along its equator, where the rings are and I saw one moon which was on the right hand side closest to our Earths moon, I have not yet been able to identify the moons name despite having tables for that reason.

I suspect that when the seeing is better that my view of it will be much better, but nonetheless it was impressive and I now have Jupiter, Saturn and Venus ticked all in my first week, however the continuing bad cloudy nights have retarded my strike rate enormously.

I can only assume I will be out there all night as soon as the first really clear night comes along in Feb.