Of the moons I only noted Titan, Rhea, Dione and Tethys. The shadow of the planet on the rings was noted-it always heightens the sense of 3-dimensionality-I confess I photoshopped this part of my drawing after scanning it, because I couldn't make it dark enough likewise I photoshopped the bit of space interior to the crepe ring to get it dark enough. Cassini shimmered in the seeing, but was clearly visible all the way around-at one point, I thought it looked lighter where it crossed the planet, but I don't know if current illumination makes that possible, and it was probably a bit of imagination. The Crepe ring was beautiful across the planet's face and into the ansae (I have not rendered its shape very well here) the Encke minima were visible in the A ring, and the usual darkening of the B ring near the ansae as well. The north polar region was exceptionally dark, and at some point I thought I spied a light zone running around it, but I have not drawn this-it was too fleeting.

Banding was very nice, with an obvious wide light zone at the equator, a broad darker band through the tropical and temperate regions, and a very narrow light zone just north of this. On the night of 3/26 (that is, early on 3/27), it rewarded me with a captivating view of Saturn at 530X, which I have attempted to represent here in a 'sketch.' Quotation marks, because it was a bit of a cheat: I started with an astrophoto, then photoshopped the heck out of it until I had a featureless white ball and featureless rings, with indications of their separation: this I used as a template on which to sketch.Īs for the observation, I began with sucker holes in a light cloud layer but fairly steady seeing around 2 am, however, almost at transit, I had clear sky and a good view-not rock solid, but with enough momentary calm to see a fair amount of detail. I recently completed a 12.5 inch scope that rides nicely on an old, refurbished Tom O platform.

Lightzone pentax