Astronomy · Obs Report · 24th March 2005

Saturn

Saturn is now high in the south western sky. Whilst waiting for Jupiter to emerge from behind a cloud I put the telescope onto Saturn to see how it was doing. The view, as always, was spectacular. There appeared a lot of detail and colour in both the planet globe and the rings with the Cassini division immediately visible. I could also make out 5 moons.

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Jupiter

Once the clouds dispersed I moved over to Jupiter for my first view of the Jovian giant for almost a year! Even at x50 the Northern and Southern Equatorial Bands were clearly visible, whilst the moons shone brightly. Increasing the power improved the view until at x200 where, although the planet was large, it was swimming in atmospheric turbulence. Even so, to see it again was good, and I shall be checking it out again once I get a better night.

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M44 - The Beehive Cluster in Cancer

I took a quick look at this as I moved over to Iota-1 Cancri. In the moonlit sky only the brightest stars were visible, but they did look impressive without the less contrasty background of the fainter cluster members.

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Iota-1 Cancri - Double star in Cancer

This was fairly easy to find thanks to the helpful hints to be found in Turn Left At Orion. This is a very wide double located 170 light years away from Earth. The larger A star is magnitude 4.2 and yellowy-orange in colour whilst the smaller companion, B is a much dimmer mag 6.6 and a deep blue. The colour contrast looked very nice in the scope although the atmospheric disturbances did not help the viewing.

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