Time: 6:45 U.T.
Telescope: 30cm Newtonian
Magnification: 300x
Seeing: Poor to Bad
NELM: 5.7 (Moonlight)
Temperature: +40 F (+4 C)
I had hoped for (and was expecting) better seeing conditions. Under the circumstances, 3oox was way too much magnification; but I kept looking and hoping for conditions to improve (Clear Sky Clock had predicted improved seeing). In the end, I had to skip the planned Saturn observation and instead record nothing more than Saturn's brightest moons.
In the above sketch a more or less 'generic' Saturn is shown looking much sharper than it actually looked during this session. South is up. Preceding is to the left.The brightest moon, to the lower left of the planet is Titan. Titan was discovered on this very date in 1655 by Christian Huygens. Proceding clockwise from Titan, the other Saturnian moons are: Tethys, Dione, Iapetus, and Rhea.
After I posted the above sketch I noticed that some of the moons didn't show up as well as I had hoped. Iapetus should be the faintest moon. It's located to the right of Saturn about one ring system span from the rightmost tip of Saturn's ring system. Rhea is about midway between Iapetus and the ball of the planet, but shifted a small distance downward. Rhea appeared to be second in brightness after Titan; but doesn't show up that way in the above sketch.
Tethys and Dione, both to the left of the planet should appear approximately equally bright (but don't appear so in the sketch) -- just slightly fainter than Rhea.
I had tried something a bit different in the creation of the above sketch; but the final result didn't turn out as well as I had hoped. I'll know better next time!
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