Saturn Peeping

Oh how the rings
entice me in the cold
make me feel bold
to go out there
and touch that orb in the sky
to wonder why
it is there
how such beauty
is there for me to behold

Viewed Saturn tonight in my Meade ETX 80. It has a 400mm focal length. I was viewing it with the 6.7 and 4.7 Meade ultra-wide lenses I bought with the 2x Barlow. With the 4.7 it was about 170x magnification. I set the GOTO controller to center on Saturn and let it slew the scope to keep it in view. It worked pretty good but was a bit jumpy at that magnification when it moved. This is the first time I used the 4.7 and the Barlow with some decent success. I should have tried this on Jupiter when I was viewing that a while back. Maybe on Jupiters next passes.

Looking at Saturn in this tiny scope is not at all like looking at those pictures on the internet from the Hubble. Saturn just mostly appears milky white but you can definately make out that it had rings. No definition between any individual rings. No "ears" on Saturn like Galileo saw. Of course I think all the light pollution in the air doesn't help bring out the color. I could vaguely see a bit of color at times, maybe just my eyes playing tricks. I also swore I saw a tiny speck of light at times just to the right of saturn. I bit of a twinkle - a moon or just a star?

It was fun but a bit cold...