Saturn

Another break and time for a short session to feed the addiction! I always enjoy to gaze upon the jewel of our solar system when I get the chance.Even with a small aperture telescope such as the little Maksutov that I used this time. Sure, it can't compete with a bigger aperture telescope, but it's still quite enjoyable. Only got a few seconds of clarity since the planet currently is located so low towards the horizon. I wish I could see Saturn from my backyard. Then I could use the 12" dob instead.

I was woken up around 23:00 by some noise outside my window.

Raccoons again.

I opened the door and threw a couple of rocks to scare them away and when as I glanced upward, starlight. For the first time in weeks my instinctive look up was actually met by something other than overcast skies: Jupiter hanging low in the east.

Even though it is way past my bedtime, I just manage to pull out the scope, place it under the local street lamp and point it at Saturn. This is my first observation of the mighty ringed planet this year. He's as an impressive sight as I remember when I first got into astronomy a year ago.

So glad I finally got the telescope out. Here's to more clear nights!

This was my first time viewing the ringed planet! I could clearly see the gap between the rings and the planet. Beautiful!

For my final view of the night I decided to look at Saturn. It was quite low on the horizon,just barely over the tree tops. Wasn't able to make out much detail due to the atmosphere being soupy and causing it to blur. I was able to see a few moons,Titan stood out the most. I was able to make out Rhea too but it was very faint compared to Titan.

Woke up at 5am to see the eclipse. Just my luck the moon enter the penumbral eclipse before it set. As it went behind the trees I swung over and took a peek at our ringed neighbor. Was able to distinguish the Cassini Division in the rings,wasn't able to do that with my old telescope. Nice and crisp morning to view the early sky.