STARRY'S ASTRONOMY PICTURE OF THE DAY
The pictures posted are taken by myself from my Observatory in Coonabarabran using a digital SLR camera. I am happy to post astro pictures from others if they wish. Leave your email address in my guestbook.
Saturn is my favourite telescope object. Through the eyepiece 2 rings are easily seen as well as up to 5 of its moons, the brightest being Titan, the only moon with an atmosphere.If you look carefully you can see the shadow the planet casts on the rings. Also noticed the flattening of the poles and the hint of a cloud belt above the equator. Not bad eh.
Saturn is the 7th planet from the sun (if you don't count planet Vulcan ). It is the second largest in our solar system and has the largest number of moons. There are accually millions of rings. The whole ring system is thinner than paper put down to the same scale. It is made of highly reflective snowballs and was probably formed recently from a moon that came too close. I fyou check out the rings in 2008, you will not see them as they will appear edge on. They are only 10m thick. At present we see the underside of the rings which means my picture is upside down.
Some stats
Distance from the sun 9 AU at perhelion to 10 AU at aphelion
Year - 29.37 earth years
Day - 10 hr, 14 min at the equator
Temperature at cloud tops -180 deg C
Mass - 95 Earth masses
Diameter - 9.5 Earths (equatorial)
Density - 0.69g/mL (less dense than water, it would float in water)
This picture was taken at prime focus using a 14" Meade LX200GPS Telescope and a meade LPI video camera in Coonabarabran Australia.