Saturn Occulatation
By David North

Put me on the "saw it" list. Up at Foothill with Akkana, Paul Mortfield and William Phelps (doing their TV thang; I don't think either actually saw it but Akkana had her 80mm Vixen which showed the event very well).

The occultation was a complete bust; could only see a faint blob disappearing due to heavy local clouding. But the main event, emergence, was perfectly clear and reasonably steady considering the elevation. I was able to make out Cassini's as a marking through the six inch dob (which I thought would be unlikely before the event).

Time predictions and locations by MPJ Astro were right on the money; I misread the moon chart and thought it would come out south of Crisium, but it came out north (in agreement with the program after I later reviewed it.. it has a funky error of "marking" vs. "position").

By counting (didn't want to look at my watch) I got about 30 seconds for the part of the emergence I saw (couldn't time the occultation since we couldn't see it). Anybody have the sense to use a stopwatch? Didn't see the very beginning of the emergence...