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Saturn 2003 - post mortem

Started by ronbee, 05/15/2003 03:51PM
Posted 05/15/2003 03:51PM Opening Post
Well, one last look at Saturn last weekend through my 4" TV-102 Light Cup confirms that the season is over :-(, boiling away into the western horizon. I owe a debt of eternal gratitude to Saturn (and Eric J.) this year for helping me get started in sketching and thereby helping me to see more than the previous year!

One question remains. I can tell when Jupiter and Mars planetary disc is rotating. But Saturn seems, well so static. No movement in the belts, no movement in the ring that I could see. (Now I realize that ring change angle every year.) Has anyone been able to detect motion in this beautiful and unique planet? If so, how did you do it? How
long do you have to watch to detect motion?

Thanks,
Ron B[ee]
Posted 05/15/2003 04:51PM #1
Ron, Back in the late 80s/early 90s(?) there was a fairly prominent white spot that appeared on Saturn. I guess something like that would show rotation easily, with Saturn having a 10 hour(?) rotation period. DR

Darian R.
Posted 05/15/2003 05:23PM #2
Hi, Ron. Although not exactly a planetary feature, the shadow of the globe onto the rings does change position through each opposition. For example, the shadow will be on the "left" before opposition, directly above at opposition, and move "right" after opposition (of course, "left" "right" and "above" depend on orientation in your eyepiece).

Other than that, it is fun to try to identify the moons.