Observing Reports
February 2007
3rd – 4th February 2007
At around midnight , I set up the 8” Newtonian and started to view Saturn.
The seeing was so terrible the Cassini Division was not even visible. At first I thought it was out of collimation and removed the scope from the mount and tried to align the mirrors. As far as I could tell it wasn’t that much off anyway, so when I tried again they view was still really bad.
One interesting point though was Saturn’s moons. Titan was easily visible and Dione, Rhea & Tethys were very close to the planet but quite faint. I don’t think I have noticed the moons before as much as this and was a very interesting sight. A miniature solar system, almost!
The Moon was very close to Saturn but on looking at it the hazy effect from terrible seeing was evident.
Tried for a few webcam images of Saturn and the Moon and have uploaded these to the site. They are not that great due to the bad conditions but the Cassini Division and a few planet rings can be seen.
I was recently informed of a new site, like the Clearsky Clock that the Americans get but bases in Europe . It seems promising but unfortunately the site seems down.
The seeing conditions effected the views of the celestial bodies and the brightness of the moon meant deepsky work would not be very good so I headed in.
To be really honest, it was still a great night. Being under the full moon, lighting up the garden is a magical experience, especially when its nice and cold.