Smithysteve Posted April 27, 2015 Share Posted April 27, 2015 Hi all, I opened up the dome last night, about 22.00hrs, looking to have my first telescope view of Saturn and a few of its moons this year... Along with some initial fuzzy hunting... Using the LX200 at f10, and sticking to my 2", University Konig 70deg. I knew Saturn was low in the sky (about 16 deg. above horizon around midnight) so there was a lot of atmosphere to peer through, Also, there was an 8 day old Moon 6 deg from Jupiter, so I half expected a bit of a washout! I started off the session with the stuff I knew I could find - Jupiter, the Leo galaxies M65 & M66 (could not see fellow triplet member NGC3628 though, so I knew seeing was not brill...), I hopped over to the whirlpool Galaxy M51, then M94 and M106. So far so good, so I tried my luck on M64 the Blackeye Galaxy, another first for me! Yep, there it was. Could make out no definition though. This was all good stuff! It's hard to believe you are looking at billions of stars! I checked out the awesome sight that is M3, (glob),Still takes my breath away! Love it, love globs full stop! So I moved on to M53 glob, like a 'mini me' of M3! 😉 Back to galaxies, found M58 & M59, but could not get M60 this time around It's midnight and so, on to the main event for me tonight Saturn! She sat low in the sky and looked like an average star brightness wise. Dropped the scope down to it using goto, which missed! And then centred it using the Telrad. Looked through the ep and got a warm feeling, It was like seeing an old friend for the first time in a year! Could not get much def but using sky safari pro 4 app I identified 4 of Saturn's moons fairly easily. Titan, Tethys, Rhea and Dione. I think I got a glimpse of Enceladus too. Wow! It really is a beautiful sight! It was bubbling and shimmering through all that atmosphere but worth a look... A taste of things to come, brill! Finished up around 1.00am. Cheers for reading! +TasKiNG and Tweedledee 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tweedledee Posted April 27, 2015 Share Posted April 27, 2015 Great report, you obviously had a wonderful time Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werisit Posted April 27, 2015 Share Posted April 27, 2015 Brilliant Stephen. I keep promising myself a late one to get a first look at Saturn this time round. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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