funny experience last night

by Richard Crisp

I was using my 18" cass last night (wed) a bit. I had just finished collimation checking (had the scope apart recently) and was preparing to do some imaging but had first stopped on a convenient bright star for synchronizing "The Sky".

So while I was centering this bright star I noticed it was of a really strange shape: oblong.

Gee this is strange i thought. surely it is not a close double???

I checked The Sky and no, it was not a double.

well I wondered if maybe it was a ghost from an earlier bright star (using the ST10XME which can have ghosts remaining from bright stars). So i let the sensor warm up and then cool down again thinking that would purge the ghost.

Nope, still there, but other stars were round.

So i decided shoot it with a shorter exposure and with 1x1 binning to see if I could separate a close double.

Well the answer was clear when I did that. I was on SATURN!!

It's been so long since I fiddled with planets I forgot what Saturn looked like when captured binned 3x3 at high magnification (F=5760mm).

I had a good laugh at my silliness for not noticing what it was right away, and ran inside to fetch my wife to take a quick peek (she likes the way Saturn looks).

Anyway it was a nice way to lighten up the early evening.

I did finally find that reference star: it was just beside old Saturn, but no where near as bright. In retrospect I should have realized the "star" i was seeing in my finder was awfully bright for a mag 3 star :-)

Posted on sf-bay-tac Feb 10, 2005 12:42:45 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Feb 10, 2005 21:15:27 PT