Saturn Opposition tonight!

Well, tonight we had good skies and I got the chance to take a long look at Saturn. I saw 7 moons, Tethys, Enceladus, Mimas, Dione, Rhea, Titan and Hyperion. 8O This is more moons than I can remember ever seeing at one time on Saturn.
I was using my Astro Sky 10" F/6 Zambuto mirror Dob and the Meade 4000 UWA 8.8mm (173x) for the spotting of the moons. This EP was the best for the night. When I went above this the viewing would begin to lose sharpness, so this was the limit. There was a bit of high winds and it was playing with the image slightly.
The Cassini was quite visible as were many bands on Saturn itself. Very nice image, but I wish the night could have taken a little more power. Oh well, that is ok, the viewing was great.
I also checked out the trapezium and got 7 stars there, A,B,C,D,E,F and H were visible with direct vision, but I could not find G.
I should have taken out the 14.5" but this was the one I wanted for the night.

Nice, congratulations! I've gotten 6 moons in one night in the 5" f/8 refractor, but Mimas always eludes me.

M42 is very low on the horizon here, so even E and F are quite a challenge, I am still trying for them whenever I can (for five years now). It just seems the most stable nights of seeing are when M42 is not high in the sky... Spring and Fall. Now seeing H.. Impressive! what latitude are you at?

I'd join in your efforts for Saturn, but it's bouncing between -10F and -20F the last few days and I've got a bit of a cold so I dont feel brave enough to go for it.

Saturn was wonderful last night from my location in South Jersy 16:30-18:00 UT
I used my ETX90 mounted on a JMI Megapod with Televue 19mm Panoptic, and Meade 8.8 UWA EPs. I also used my Celestron C-102(Vixen)Refractor mounted on a UA Unistar which sits on top of a Bogen 3068 tripod. I used the 19mm Panoptic, Edscorp (Circle T) 12.5mm Orthoscopic and a Ultima 2X barlow.
Both instruments gave me wonderful views, great contrast in both but I liked the view in the C-102 the best was with the 19mm Panoptic, pin point stars to the edge of field and the moons were pin points as well. I've really come to enjoy wide field views as I get older. The EXT90 views were best with my recently acquired 8.8mm UWA wonderful contrast with a wide field view. A real surprise was the Edscorp 12.5mm Ortho that 25 year old EP gave me very nice, bright views with good contrast. Cassini division was sharper and more defined then I've ever seen it in my C-8, however I don't remember how close to opposition the planet was from earth when I last viewed it with the C-8. The color contrast between the planets disk and rings was amazing. The banding on the disk was most amazing because it was clear and well defined, it appeared light whiskey brown to me. I was able to observe at least 5 moon's in my C-102.
I almost didn't observe last night because I got home late but decided to take out the ETX90 which was already set up and the C-102 which is easy to mount on the Unitar boy am I glad I did.
An important lesson to be learned is that if you have a good Alt/Az mount which is easy to set up chances are you'll observe! I always hated setting up my fork mounted C-8, with wedge and tripod then polar aligning etc... I'll take a small scope easy to set up to a larger instrument any day if it means I'll get out an observe!!! It's nice to talk astronomy and have great equipment but even more fun to do it. After all that's what our hobby is all about. I'm going to run out now to do some Solar viewing with my Nighthawk and PST see ya later
Clear Skies

Here is a crude but accurate drawing of the moons of Saturn I saw 2-03-2006.
The one closest to the planet in the drawing was not visible in my 10" SCH but was seen in the 12.5" dob with direct vision. Unfortunately the fog rolled in at 8:55 PM (approx) and I could not try in the SCH with averted vision. The inner ring was also still visible in the 12.5".

Greg

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