Moon near Saturn

The pre-dawn Moon passes quite close to Saturn the Morning of the 19th at around 4 A.M.

There should only be a thin crescent left at this stage (Mag - so hopefully this should be a nice sight.

I wonder will they be too far appart at that stage to photograph?

Orion will be nicley placed in the South so I am hoping for clear skies
to catch my first glimpse of him this year!

ha! that should read (mag -eight) but the Emoticons seem to have taken over!

With my scopes & eyepieces, I'll need the 41 Pan in the 4" refractor to get both in the same field, which gives me only 20X.

Anyone know if I'll be able to see the rings of Saturn at 20X? Or is it going to look stellar at that low of a magnificatoin?

Thanks,
-- Jeff.

If the weather is good, I might have a go at that myself

I'd say you'd barely make out the rings at x20, they would just look like two extensions on either side of the planet...

Keith..

You'd be pushing it at 20x, BTW, did anyone else notice the fabulopus sunset tonight, the horison is a fantastic dark yellow and the sky is a dark azure blue, its gonna be a good sky tonight lets hope its clear on monday morning.

Anyone know if I'll be able to see the rings of Saturn at 20X? Or is it going to look stellar at that low of a magnificatoin?

Hi Jeff,

Technically you would see the rings at 20x. I've seen them distinctly separate from the planet in my 20x60mm binoculars. However, the problem now is that their tilt towards Earth has been slowly decreasing the last few years. The southern aspect of the rings are tipped just 14.25 degrees Earthward on Sept 19th ... not as wide open as a few years ago and so probably making the observation impossible at 20x. As Keith said, you will see an elongated shape to the planet though. The rings will be edge on in 2009 but Saturn will be too close to the Sun when the Earth passes through the ring plane (and on the next occasion 15 years later!) We will not get a good edge-on view of Saturn until the triple passage of 2038-39 :shock: :shock: :shock:

atb,

John