Open night at the observatory

Have you ever wondered what Saturn would look through a really big telescope? Yesterday I saw Saturn through the 1.3 m telescope at the Skinakas observatory. They had one of their Open Days, and for once the target was not the full Moon. Unfortunately the seeing was not so good (it was difficult to see the Cassini division), but it was a chance for me to see the true colors of Saturn. Through my own puny telescope the colors of Saturn are rather dull, but through the 1.3 m the globe had a distinct straw yellow color. This Voyager 2 image is close. 

 

Looking at Saturn through the 1.3 m telescope

I reprocessed my recent Saturn image to resemble the color I saw through the large telescope: 

Most amateur astronomers tend to process their Saturn images to have far more blue. 

Starmus astrophotography competition

The winners of the Starmus contest were announced a few days ago. The overall winner, Alex Cherney, of Victoria, Australia, will get an all expenses paid trip to the conference, and 1 hour of observing time at the Gran Telescopio Canarias, one of the largest telescopes in the world. I wonder what he will select to observe. I would have chosen Saturn, as it is now placed well in evening sky. 

My own contributions did not make it to the top. Here they are, my best solar system images from a decade of imaging (only Neptune is missing), and an animation of Jupiter occulting the star Cap45. 

 

Untitled from Jon Kristoffersen on Vimeo.

This phenomenon is extremely rare. Few people seem to have captured the occultation on video, and even fewer in visible light. The video may be unique in that it shows  the bright flashes in three bands (red, green and blue) simultaneously. 

  

Welcome

Welcome reader!
This is my first try at a blog, and I have a lot to learn about Blogger. I plan to post my planet images here, and we'll see where it goes from there. For now, here is my latest Saturn image. 

Compared to my first Saturn image from abut a decade ago, it is an enormous improvement. 

I hope one day to equal the results of Damian Peach, whose results are unsurpassed in the amateur astronomy community, see for example this fantastic Saturn image: http://www.damianpeach.com/sat11/2011_03_28lrgb.jpg