Click image for larger view.Started last night off by trying out my camera mount for the telescope. I was going to try and find the double cluster and get a few shots of it, but I decided to go for a slightly easier target, Pleiades. That's the image to the left. The star trails are due to my motor not being set at a proper speed for tracking but it was enough to make me happy with the image! The clouds you see in the image are due to either frost/fog or possibly a cloud that I didn't notice was in the sky. Not completely sure. Image was taken with 8 second shutter speed, F4.5, and ISO 1600.
Then I finally viewed Saturn for my first time! The transparency and seeing weren't all that great. It was a bit of a wavy view looking through the atmosphere. It couldn't have been my scope because it had been outside close to 3 hours, plenty of time to cool down. It is a possibility that it was heat coming off of me, because it wasn't there the whole time I was looking, just for a few seconds.
I remembered looking for Saturn a week or so ago and Arcturus foiled me. I had thought I got Saturn and then was disappointed when the view through the telescope was just an orange ball with no rings. I was then excited that I had seen Arcturus and it's bright glory, but still a little let down because I didn't get to catch a glimpse of Saturn. So last night I looked to the East, looked at Arcturus with a death stare and then looked a bit further South and saw another bright yellow/orange 'star' in the sky. Aimed my scope at it with the 32mm eyepiece and centered it, turned on my motor to track it... still haven't got that thing down yet. Put in my 12.5mm eyepiece and there it was, just as described by Galileo; it had ears! In my excitement I had to call my girlfriend out to the 0°F night to look at Saturn. I didn't tell her what it was but she guessed it pretty quickly. I stood in the cold another 5 or so minutes and then packed it in for the night. I'm keeping my eyes opened for another clear night with better transparency and seeing. The eyepieces had started to frost over by the end, probably from me breathing, so that was also a kick to get me back inside where it's warm.
Another great night of viewing. The sky's a beautiful place, I'm so glad I get to see it a little more up close.
And a little information about what I mean by transparency and seeing.
Transparency: The total transparency from the ground to the sky, it's calculated by the amount of water vapor in the air. Above average is what's needed for viewing low contrast objects like nebula and galaxies.
Seeing: Seeing is for viewing detail at high magnification on planets and the moon. I had poor seeing, which could have been the cause of the wavy view I was getting when magnified on Saturn.
Comments
That was really interesting and well written too, I got caught up in your excitement and dissapointment.
You've made a dry subject really interesting again like when I was a child,thanks.
I do have to agree about a dry subject. I find it highly interesting but when it get's to a certain point it's really hard to keep interest when I don't completely understand what's being talked about.
Glad I made it enjoyable and an easy read for you. Getting into astronomy kind of makes me feel a bit like a child.