The Dutch Observatory

Jon Wood told me that the blogs today (18th) talked about a Saturn moon six pack.  Sky and Telescope showed that 5 Saturnian moons would be lined up.  Calsky identified 7, but Hyperion showed pretty far from the planet.  In addition, someone must have done a pretty good sky dance, because stability and transparency were better than anytime I recall for this year.  Here my composite of Saturn and an image of the moons lined up.  Made from the Dutch Observatory. 

Today, March 8th., is Saturn’s opposition, so Earth is right between the Sun and Saturn.  This is when the reflection of the sun’s rays on the rings is strongest and brightest.  This phenomenon is called the Seeliger effect.  Here two images of Saturn’s opposition taken 8 minutes apart around 4:00 UT.

Saturn’s opposition is only two days away.  You never know how the weather changes. So as the sky conditions were not bad, I had to get my image in, just in case….  Here Saturn at 2:53 UT on March 6th.  Note the light spot at CM329 in the STeZ.