In an effort to begin the cool-down of the Celestron SCT 14" telescope, I opened the roof immediately upon unlocking the Geoff Brown Observatory.
When I got TheSky software going, I saw the Moon, while nearly full, was sitting in Libra. Quite a distance from Saturn. OK! Let's check out Saturn then. There won't be very many chances left.
A few moments later, I had the eyepiece cabinet open. Hmmm. Which eyepiece? How about 200x then? (Of course, I incorrectly figured the focal length to be 2000mm; that's for my little 8") I grabbed the 10mm ocular (the Tele Vue Radian).
[ed: I realised later that I was working at about 400x.]
Saturn was spectacular. I could see the shadow of the rings on the surface of the clouds. Two faint moons (Dione and Rhea) flanked on the east; I saw Titan off to the west. There was another moon near Titan (Iapetus).
Tried to coax out Mimas, Hyperion, and/or Enceladus...
Tube was cooling. But the beige planet was getting low...
Thursday, June 04, 2009
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