Saturn Watch
10 July 2010
SATURN WATCH REPORT
Skies were almost perfectly clear for Astronomy Ireland's Saturn Watch July 10 at the Astronomy Ireland Shop where a Celestron CPC 11-inch telescope (and a NexStar 102 SLT) not only showed the ringed planet in all its glory (and moons) but also Mars and Venus. Just before 10pm, almost as if on cue, skies cleared and the small crowd had 3 hours of near uninterrupted viewing under excellent conditions!!!
WONDERS OF UNIVERSE
After viewing Saturn we had stunning views of the wonders of the universe, in remarkable detail given the light polluted skies. Faint stars and objects were bright and crisp against a dark sky (the rain all day washed the skies clean for exceptionally 'city' viewing!)
The Ring Nebula (M57) was a superb sight, very bright and extremely easy to see.
The Great Globular Cluster in Hercules (M13) (more detail and even more detail) was amazing! Stars could be seen to its core with direct (not averted vision). 1 million stars 25,000 light years away. Stunning!
The Wild Duck cluster (M11, see drawing) was very bright and fully resolved as a rich clump of stars with one very bright member.
DOUBLES
Seeing was good and the quadruple star Epsilon Lyra (2 pairs of close double stars) could be easily resolved. We also saw beautiful gold and blue Albireo, 24 Com, 35 Com, Epsilon Bootis(very close unequal double), Cor Caroli
SATURN
As for Saturn, the rings could be clearly seen despite being closer to edge on than we will see them for 15 years. Titan was easily visible 2 ring lengths to the left of the planet. We tried a few crude photos with a cheap camera held at the eyepiece of the scopes but they didn't come out too well.
TEMPERATURE
One nice thing about viewing in July is it was warm (15C) so shirt and open jacket kept me comfortably warm for 3 hours!
IMAGES AND MOVIES
It wasn't possible to get good photos through the telescopes but here is a still taken by holding a cheap camera at the eyepiece of a 4-inch refractor (NexStar 102 SLT) magnifying 165x
Here is a view snapped with the same camera through an 11-inch telescope (CPC1100GPS) magnifying 190x
-- David Moore, 11/07/2010
