Want to see Saturn live? You can do so here. 7/19/13
You're right - Saturn's rings are just right. We looked through a 25" scope at a small observatory a week or so ago; beautiful! It's not Cassini, either, but we could see the Cassini division.
OoooooOOO I'm jealous.
Was that at an observatory, and if so, where?
i have a wonderful 20-year-old backpacking scope, a Televue Pronto. It will just barely resolve the two main cloud bands on Jupiter, but it's not strong enough to resolve any details on Saturn, just a very bright miniature cutout of the planet + rings.
My favorite thing to do with it, oddly enough, is to go out and peer at sunspots. I rigged up a solar filter out of #17 mylar and -- I kid you not -- a margarine tub for last year's annular eclipse and Venus crossing, and it works like a charm, so I've been playing with solar photography.
...and for today's "pale blue dot" photo op, I realize that it probably snapped Earth while I was taking the cat to the vet. I find it oddly appropriate that my cat managed to get into the picture.There is a small observatory about 50 miles from me that is opened to the public on weekends, a campground nearby. Bruneau Dunes, it is called, and what are listed as the tallest sand dunes in North America are there as well, a remnant of the Bonneville Flood 12,000 years ago. We camp there every spring - it is in the desert and summertime is far too hot to enjoy.
They have the 25 incher in a typical observatory building plus several smaller scopes and a giant pair of naval binoculars they set up in the courtyard (followed the space station with those once, which was cool). In addition there is a slide show and lecture just before dark; this year it was on dark matter, dark energy and black holes. Most interesting. Very often, the astronomical society in the area shows up as well, with their own private scopes that the public can look through. Happens every Friday and Saturday nights from spring through fall.
This time it was cloudy right at dark, and they turned the big scope on the moon for lack of anything else, or least on a small portion of the moon. At the edge you could see that it was jagged, not a smooth circle, from the mountains and craters. Pretty neat.
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