First look at Saturn ...

[prova]

managed to get up to have my first look at Saturn this morning, just after 4.30am aest

i was a little disappointed as with my 25mm or 10mm i simply couldn't make out the rings at all, let alone any sort of structure ..

would this possibly due to bad seeing conditions or am I expecting too much from my equipment?

[Dennis]

Hmm, Saturn would have been around 40 degrees above the horizon at that time, and I would have expected that you should be able to resolve the ring system reasonably well with an 8” scope? Even if your mirror had not cooled down fully, the rings should have been visible?

Is the ‘scope collimated? If not, Google “Newtonian collimation” and have a read up on how to check if your ‘scope is collimated.

Cheers

Dennis

[iceman (Mike)]

40deg above the horizon? From the ACT? I didn't think it rose that high!

[spacezebra (Petra)]

Hi Mike

44deg here in Albury

Cheers Petra

[iceman (Mike)]

Wow, goes to show how long it's been since I saw it!

[saberscorpx]

A rule of thumb tells us not to expect decent resolution on anything less than 25-30 degrees above the horizon. Still, seeing has to be pretty bad to not even *detect* the rings.

Also, this is not exactly Saturn season.
Quadrature (90 deg from Sol- an unfavorable viewing aspect) is December 1st, revealing a 15% smaller and 10 times dimmer Saturn than we admired in early 2007. Plus, the rings have closed from 15d in April to less than 7d.

Fortunately, Saturn oppositions (our closest approach and most favorable viewing aspect) come around about every 378 days.
The next is in late-February 2008. At that time (and the 6 weeks before and after) Saturn gives us its best and brightest performance.


Hang in there,
SJS

[acropolite (Phil)]

Dirro what the others have said about mirror cooling/ collimation and seeing. At 40 degrees elevation you should see the rings, even at magnifications as low as 25x you can make out the ring shape and see some of Saturns moons.

[Dennis]

Whoops – I gave the altitude for Brisbane running AEST as plotted in Starry Night Pro. I just set the location to Canberra and at 4:30 am AEST SNP gave an altitude of 34 degrees. Although this is getting close to the “magic” 30 degree barrier, I think you should still have been able to see the rings of Saturn.

A Brisbane time of 3:30am AEST would be equivalent to 4:30am (AEST + 1 hr DST) for your local time when SNP gives an Altitude of 23 degrees. This is quite low for planetary observing, although I would still expect to see the wobbly rings?

Cheers

Dennis

[prova]

im gonna be honest and just post this (although I feel like an absolute idiot)

when i loaded up stellarium, i found saturn walked outside and being that time of morning not many stars were visable but i looked in the "very rough" direction of where stellarium was showing and saw a really bright light and said "well, there she is - you couldn't miss it!"

anyways, i just now had a look at stellarium again and going back to 4:40am ish and i think i was looking at ... umm ... venus

[dannat (Daniel)]

don't worry about it - could you see what phase venus was in? or was it full

[prova]

full as far as i could see, couldn't make out any detail other than it being a coloured disc

[saberscorpx]

I was going to guess Regulus.

Whatever it was I'm sure it appreciated the attention.


SJS

[Blue Skies (Jacquie)]

Originally Posted by prova

anyways, i just now had a look at stellarium again and going back to 4:40am ish and i think i was looking at ... umm ... venus

Ah, good, I was just going to suggest that that might be the problem.... Saturn's rings should show up with a min of 15x magnification so anything above that should be fairly obvious, hence I was going to suggest you weren't looking at it at all.