Saturn occultation of M1 OBSERVATION

by Robert Leyland

I took my 8" Dob out last night, for a view of Saturn and M1. Saturn looked great, especially sine this was the first time observing for a month or more, and of course the first time this year :-)

I couldn't see M1 at any magnification unfiltered. However putting an UHC filter in dropped Saturns brightness a lot, and really faint fuzzy cloud was visible around the planet. It appeared to be the same size as M1, and was not visible unfiltered. Also the UHC cut out the fainter moons completely. It is quite possible that I was seeing some filter induced fog ;-), I'll have to try to verify it by viewing Saturn with the filter when it is NOT in front of M1.

We had a group of college age kids here for game night and one had some interest so I showed him some of the usual bright sights (Jupiter, M42, M35 etc.)

It was a pretty short session, because of the kids, and the dew which was very heavy.