Last night it was a "balmy" 30 F here in Virginia--quite a relief from the last several nights. The wind also died down, finally. I decided to go out "very briefly" just to check on Jupiter's Red Spot around 11:00 p.m. EST. I usually only take my Oracle for quick looks, but I put my 6" Orion Newt out to cool off "just in case." (Also, I wanted to check its collimation. After reading the article in S&T, I spent some time tweaking it on Saturday, and thought it was finally dead-on.)
Jupiter was great in both scopes. The Red Spot was clearly visible, as were lots of bands and swirls. I spent about 45 minutes swapping eyepieces around and playing with color filters to see what I could do. (I don't usually mess with filters, but something got me thinking about them again lately. Do any of you have any luck with filters on Jupiter or Saturn?) The best views were unfiltered, using my Nagler 3-6 Zoom at about 4mm in both telescopes (140x in the Oracle, 188x in the reflector).
I noticed during my time on Jupiter that the seeing was much better than usual (although the bright moon was giving me some trouble. I tried to stay in the shadow of my house.) I decided to take a quick look at Saturn before going inside.
OH, MY! Why did I waste all that time on Jupiter?!? Saturn was phenomenal last night! I could not believe the richness of color, contrast, and razor sharpness of the view. I have NEVER seen anything like it before. The sky was perfect, allowing all the magnification I could throw at it. In the Oracle, the zoom at 3mm (180x) showed a gorgeous image, with banding on the planet and a clear difference in brightness of the A & B rings. In the reflector, the view was even better (@ 3mm = 250x), with brighter color and even more contrast.
I decided to get really crazy and put my 6mm Radian and 2.5x powermate together in the reflector (312x), expecting to see the image fall apart. Instead, it just got better!! The Radian does have a slight edge over the zoom for contrast, and in this case it showed. Saturn looked like the photographs we so often see. Banding on the planet was obvious and "colorful" (shades of yellow & olive tones). The A ring was very distinctly dimmer than the B ring; the Cassini division was picture-perfect, and--best of all--the C (or Crepe) ring was visible all the way around the planet! I picked it up first at the ansae, realized what I was seeing, found it in front of the planet, and then followed it all the way around. Wow!!
As usual, once you've found a detail, it gets easier to see in any view. Just for completeness, I went back to the zoom and found that I could indeed see the C ring with the zoom at 3mm in the reflector (but it was less obvious). In the Oracle, I could pick it up at the ansae (with the zoom), but that was it.
I spent about an hour looking at Saturn before coming inside. I was wishing for some way to photograph it, to preserve the beauty of what I was seeing. Instead, all I could do was stare, burning the image into my mind. It was definitely my most memorable view to date, in 3.5 years of observing. Wow....
Wishing you clear skies & warmer nights,
Neil