Category: Saturn

Mysterious Saturn

Saturn - June 5, 2012
Saturn - June 5, 2012

Location: Lombard, IL, USA (41.8800° N, 88.0078° W)
Date: 5 Jun 2012, 22:30 CDT
Media: Pencil on white paper (no image processing after scanning)

Comments: This is my first attempt to sketch Saturn, the planet seemed to be hiding its secrets last night, revealing details only for short moments, but staying ghostly mysterious for most of the time.
Equipment used: ATM 8″ f5.9 Newtonian, Baader Hyperion 5mm

Saturn, Titan and Raindrops

Saturn and Titan
Saturn and Titan

Object Name: Saturn
Object Type: Planet
Location: Deventer, The Netherlands
Date: May 13, 2012
Media: Pastel pencils on black paper

Last night I wanted to make a sketch of Saturn, mostly to capture as much moons as possible through my old 75mm f/15 Polarex/Unitron refractor. After 45 minutes of sketching at 200x with pastel pencils on black paper, Saturn was pretty much done (although I found it surprisingly difficult to draw a good ellipse for the rings), and just when I added the easily visble Titan, I heard some droplets on the trees next to me and felt something on my head: RAIN! I immediately covered the pastel sketch witch my hand and rushed inside my shed. After the sketch was save I pulled the telescope out of the rain. The most abrupt ending of a sketching session ever! I had completely missed the incoming clouds while viewing through the eyepiece.

Anyway, both the sketch and the telescope survived. Sadly with only one moon observed: Titan.

Clear skies and kind regards,
Roel Weijenberg
www.roelblog.nl

Golden Ringed Planet

Object Name: Saturn, Titan (T), Iapetus (J), Dione (D) and Rhea (R)

First Sketch:
CM1317,8º / CM2184,7º / CM3 319,1º
Rings: B = 10º
Location: Itajobi, SP, Brazil (backyard, downtown)
W49º03′ / S21º19′ / +460m
Date: December 27, 2010 – 06h30min (U.T.)
Seeing: 5/5 (Great!)
Telescope: reflecting 180mm / 1080mm (f6) dob mounted
Eyepieces: SP 32mm; SP 10mm; SP 6mm; 2,5x Barlow. No filter employed.
Media: graphite pencil on white paper, scanned then inverted and colors edited
Observer: Rodrigo Pasiani Costa

I spent that whole night observing the sky from backyard, and one of my targets was Saturn. Despite the clouds, the seeing and transparency were great, so I could see Saturn like never before (450x without any loss). Both the shadows of the rings on the globe and the shadows of the globe over the rings were clearly seen, splitting one another. The Cassini Division could be seen in both ends of the rings, but the difference in the outer ring color was not notable. A dark stripe crossed the planet, fading yet very remarkable. Another shy dark stripe intended to follow the first one, however was not able to cross the hole bright disc. Two of its moons were visible. In fact, Iapetus was probably visible too, however it was far away from the planet, and I missed it.
The next night it rained a lot, and I spent it doing something else. The following three nights the sky was clear again, and I could observe Saturn and its moons. I made this four sketches (in second picture) to show the dance of the moons around Saturn, all made at the same hour, during four days. Follow the sequence:
a) December 27, 2010
b) December 29, 2010
c) December 30, 2010
d) December 31, 2010
I hope you enjoy it, it was really pleasant to observe Saturn last summer.

Rodrigo Pasiani Costa

Burning Candles at Both Ends

Clear skies and a prominent day-11 moon on the evening of 16th December had me out really enjoying sketching; it wasn’t too cold (to begin with), the skies were clear, the target was high and I had plenty of time…..all a rare occurrence.

I sketched one of the most architecturally pleasing parts of the moon; the Sinus Iridum, which is a large crater/small basin with a partially flooded rim.

Of the two promontories, the one on the right (Promontorium Heraclides) is also known as the moon maiden, because at certain times it resembles the profile of a lady, with her long hair falling away off her shoulders. Also visible are the wrinkle ridges which might be traces of the buried rim, and craters Bianchini, Maupertuis, La Condamine and Bouguer.

Awaking on 17th at 4am with busy thoughts, I decided that viewing Saturn would be better than attempting to get back to sleep. And so it was.

I was surprised by quite a lot. The rings had opened up quite a bit since I saw them last spring. Not being close to opposition, the planet was quite small and I couldn’t see much detail on the planet itself. Only one moon was obvious; Titan predictably. With effort, another moon could be viewed roughly forming a right-angled triangle between Titan and the planet; it’s the faint spot at middle-left of the picture. This turned out to be Iapetus, which was pleasing because I haven’t seen that very often. It was new for me to see a moon so out of plane with the planet and the rings as last year they were mostly in line. It was good to see such old friends again.

* Object Name – Sinus Iridium, Mare Imbrium; Saturn, Titan, Iapetus.
* Object Type – Lunar Crater, Mare; Planet, Moons.
* Location – York, UK
* Date 16th December 2010, 17th December 2010
* Media – Graphite pencil on white paper. Observing instrument: Skywatcher Skyliner 152mm f8 Dobsonian, 10mm e.p., x2 Barlow.

Venus, Saturn and Handful of Frost

Hello!
Last night I and my Friends we have a great observation night in Oderne, in south Poland – beautiful place among Beskid mountains. We have very good, clear sky but there was very chill. We have very low temperature at night. About -20°C (about -4°F). In central Europe during the Winter, it is nothing strange. But it is necessary to be a tough to make all night observations in this conditions 😉
After many hours of the good observations we take a little nap. We have resumed our observations at 4 AM to get the first Venus and Saturn since few months.
There was intense, severe frost.

Object: Planets Venus and Saturn
Scope: SCT 5″ with SW UWA58 9mm
Time and date: December 5th, 2010. About 4:00 AM
Place: Oderne, Poland
Weather: Clear, dark sky. Heavy frost.
Technique: Graphite pencil
Tooling: Some correction with PhotoShop
Observer: Aleksander Cieśla (Wimmer)

I have a interesting foto from that observations.
There was really heavy frost. After all my equipment was operating quite good 🙂 There was strange noise from motors of my Celestron SLT mount, like howling 😉 But all night long it was operating correctly. I have little problems with corrector plate of my C5 SCT too, but dew shield works not bad. Most problems we have with the eyepieces. Puting the eyepiece to the poket at several minutes – that was an easy solution of this problem.
During that night my equipment looks like that: 🙂

Thank You, and sorry for my bad english.

A Moon with a View

Saturn
Saturn – Large Sketch from Observation Through the Telescope With Artists Conception Below
By Mark Seibold

From Sandy Oregon, 30 miles east of Portland, at the home driveway – Saturn Observed February 28 ~ March 2 Through 10.1″ Newtonian- Large Pastel Sketch produced:

I observed Saturn through my 10.1″ Newtonian at medium to high power magnification (120X ~ 240X) on several evenings last week, in effort to see some detail in the rings and surface cloud banding. Seeing was medium to marginal at times through the evenings. Using Sol Robbins template and other images from the web to accurately proportion the rings, I rendered this 19” X 25” pastel impression showing about what is seen in a good medium telescope if one stands back say 25 feet from the full image on a standard computer screen. Saturn’s disc was sketched at 7 ¾” at the equator. The Cassini division was easily visible and the crepe ring only hinted at high magnification at 240x through a 5mm Super Plossl eyepiece through my 10.1″ f/4.5 Newtonian-Dobsonian telescope with average seeing conditions at times with glimpses through steady atmosphere.

The foreground was quickly added from imagination for depth and drama as a final touch, which seems to captivate a view from one of Saturn’s moons, possibly Titan with a suggestion to an ocean-scape.

The sketch was photographed with a Sigma 35mm DSLR under white balanced studio lights.

Saturn – March 8, 2010

Saturne_10_03
Saturn – March 8, 2010
Sketch and Details by Serge Vieillard

On March 8, 2010, it was off to the Observatory of Paris, on the venerable 380 mm glass (to see “Mars). We passed under the plane of the rings and they are currently well closed and gray in color. The crepe ring is thus particularly obvious. The vision is very white, very bright, with a yellowish and suspicion sometimes of a greenish tinge. G 750X.