While in California for the weekend, I had a chance to glance skyward and see the stars in their oh-so-familiar positions. I quickly identified Leo and The Dipper, then Arcturus. I was looking around for Spica and ran across Saturn, and noticed that there was something strange going on — Saturn was extremely close to a fairly bright star.

There were a lot of clouds, so I couldn’t exactly figure out which star it was, but I knew it was one of the bright stars in Virgo.

Sure enough, I looked it up on Your Sky (a completely wonderful and free online star chart), and the star is Porrima, the apex of the “satellite dish” asterism in Virgo.

It turns out that the separation was around 30′ (that’s the width of a full moon) and is closing for the next month.

If you get a chance to see this pretty pairing, check it out!

I was up very very early, walking the dogs. Champ asked to go out around 4:30.

It was a very cold (around 20°) but crisp and clear night. The crescent new-minus-3-days moon was just rising near a very bright Venus.

I started looking around to see what constellations were up, and I ran across an extra star in Virgo. It was near enough to Spica that the only way to tell which was the “right” one and which was the “interloper” was by the new star’s yellow color.

It was Saturn.

Normally, I keep pretty good track of where all the planets are, so I’m not caught by surprise like that. But Saturn (in particular) can get away from you occasionally, especially when it’s a strange time of night.

This reminds me of the first time that I “discovered” Saturn. I was sitting on the balcony of The Camden apartment, sometime in early autumn of 2003. We’d just moved to CA that year, and I had discovered, much to my surprise, that the sky was rotating, while chatting during a camping/rafting trip the previous weekend.

The whole sky rotation trick had me intrigued, and so I bought a little star atlas at Barnes & Noble, and was sitting on the balcony, book on my lap, and trying to figure out what I was looking at, staring at the few stars I could see between the lights of the surrounding apartments, the trees, and the hills. I had already picked out Aldebaran in Taurus, as a few more bright stars came over the horizon. I picked out what I could and realized that I was looking at Gemini, but that there was an “extra” bright star up there that wasn’t in my star atlas. I double and triple-checked to see if maybe the atlas was wrong, and then decided to check the ‘net, and sure enough…

It was Saturn.

Knowing what I know now, discovering “Saturn is in Virgo” is no big deal. But at the time, it was mind-blowing. That was the moment that I became truly hooked on astronomy.

The stars (at least, the northern ones) are all old friends now, and I give a little nod to Aldebaran each year in the fall, “Debbie” I call it, the first star whose name I ever learned.

But I have to admit a thrill, every time I re-discover a planet. It brings back the giddy rush of those early days, when I couldn’t tell the difference.

Thanks, Saturn. And welcome back.

I haven’t done any solar system photography in several years. In particular, Saturn has been a no-go for several years straight. This is a combination of my focus being on DSO photography, Saturn’s rings being in sort of “bummer” mode, and Saturn being not as well-placed in the sky.

But, since I had the rig all set up anyway, I decided to go for it.

Saturn was really not working at f/60. Just not enough light to go. Maybe it’s because it’s low, maybe I just need to shoot at f/40 instead. In any case, this is f/20, 4700mm focal length.

Not a great shot, but Saturn’s back on the website, so there you go.

I shot with K3 (I still use version 1, the free version) for the first 2 years. With one or two minor exceptions, all of my planetary (not lunar) images are K3/3000. The NexImage came in just as I was losing interest in planetary shooting. It works like a webcam in K3, too. It’s basically a repackaged Toucam.

I have had zero trouble getting either webcam to work in K3 v.1 on at least 4 different machines under Win2K and XP. I don’t think I’ve run it in the VM yet, but I can’t think of a reason it wouldn’t work.

My best Saturn to-date, hands down.

I could tell I had something special — this night was right after we’d had a few days of rain, so the air was clear and steady. With stacked 2x Barlows, I could *see* a clear image of Saturn on the screen.

Through a 2x Barlow, resampled to 2x.

Note a hint of the Encke Division (a smaller, dimmer division in the rings outside the very visible Cassini Division)

By a year later, my technique had improved somewhat.