I was wondering if I could see Saturn's moons with my current telescope, a 15cm Apeture, 1000m Focal Length reflector. The highest mag that I can get, with my current eyepieces is 333x(a 6mm and a 2x barlow). Also I have a number of filters. If you could tell me what magnification would be most usefull, and indicate a good filter to use, that would be very helpful.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Smaug on 2002-12-07 21:18 ]</font>

You can see several of Saturn.s moons with a 150mm scope at 150x to 250x. The tricks are they'll look like stars (little pinpoints), they'll move from night to night, they orbit in the same plane as the ring, and some are pretty far away from the rings. Check out Sky & Tel magazine for the predicted position on each night. Last night I saw 4 in a 125mm refractor and 6 in a 400mm reflector.

Clear Skys

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: JimB on 2002-12-07 23:53 ]</font>

Even if you are observing in a city suburb with light pollution, you should be able to see Titan with averted vision. In good out-of-town seeing conditions, you should be able to glimpse Titan directly.
Saturn offers breathtaking viewing this time of year.

Absolutely. Several of the major moons are observable with your scope with good seeing:
Here are a few with approx. max. magnitudes:
Titan - 8.2
Dione - 10.4
Rhea - 9.7
Mimas would be a test of your scopes limit at ~ 12.9

G^2

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Gsquare on 2002-12-08 00:14 ]</font>

This time of the decade, too. The rings tilted so strongly towards us happens about every fifteen years. About seven years ago, when you looked at the rings, they were nearly edge on.

I just checked on SkyWatch, this year, the tilt of the rings is at a peak. Next year they will begin moving towards edge on.

With my 500mm telescope, I use a 4mm lens with a 3X Barlow lens. Titan is really easy to spot as a sort of dullish star near Saturn. Tonight, it will be about 2' NW of Saturn.

But. What's your aperture?

114mm

At mag 8.3, Titan is visible in 10x50 binoculars.

__________________
Any day you wake up on "the right side of the dirt" is a good day.

T. Anderson

Yup. Most recently, I've seen Titan (and Saturn) both ways:
1. Meade ETX 90mm with Barlow under good seeing.
2. With a friend's Nikon 10-22x50 XL Binoculars. [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]

I came across a couple more I forgot to add to the list, Smaug.

Tethys ~ magnitude 10.2 and orbits in less than 2 days. (within the orbit of Rhea)

Another unusual moon that is visible with a 15cm aprture is Iapetus, orbiting way out there (80 days), and having a variable brightness from ~10 to 12th mag. It is thought to be due to changes in reflectivity of surface composition as different hemispheres of Iapetus face the earth.

G^2