2009 March 12 Titan shadow transit

Bob Jardine

The weather finally cooperated (I missed the previous couple of Titan transits due to the clouds). Still, I didn't have quite the success that Peter had. I also applied some fine optics to the situation, although not in the same aperture class as Peter's. But I had real trouble seeing the shadow... and not a prayer of seeing Titan itself.

I had left my scope (7" Teleport) out overnight so that it would be at thermal equilibrium, but I didn't have a lot of control over the seeing. It was just about as bad as I've seen it -- on the suck-factor scale, I'd rate it as "yucky-sucky". I tried using around 300X (3.2mm TMB Planetary), but mostly stuck with 250x (4mm TMB Planetary).

I set the alarm for 2:30 and was observing by 2:45. The moon was bright (1 day past full?) and very near Saturn, but I don't think that mattered much. I got my first "hint" of a glimpse of the shadow at about 3:30, but I'd call this "suspected" only.

Finally, I got one or two more occasional glimpses at around 3:45 that I would call pretty solid, but they were only momentary glimpses as the seeing occasionally fluctuated up from yucky-sucky to bad or maybe just plain poor.

I gave up around 4:00 (just before mid transit, I think) and tried to get a few hours of sleep before work.