Target Saturn

So the short nights have arrived and it is getting harder and harder to conduct any real stargazing activities but on the night of 30th May 2014 I decided to stay up past midnight and try to at least see Saturn through my telescope which I haven't managed to do so far. So I said goodnight to my wife who was tucked up in bed and set everything up outside my front door from which I could clearly see Saturn hovering in the sky.

The set up wasn't actually that hard as there were a few stars visible in the twilight for me to align the scope so before long I had a lovely image of Saturn in my 25mm Eyepiece. I even managed to spot the moon Titan hovering nearby which was a nice bonus. I did use my 8mm Eyepiece as well but there was a fair amount of atmospheric distortion so it wasn't the clearest of sights and quickly put it away.

It was as I began to setup my webcam and laptop that a funny event occured, one of my neighbours teenage daughter had friends or family visiting and for some random reason they were outside the front of their house. The visitor saw me hunched outside the front door and thought I was trying to break in so quickly came across and asked me if I actually lived there.. she did look a bit embarrassed when I said yes and pointed to the telescope, laptop and power supply I had arrayed in front of me. Either way it is nice to know if anyone tries to rob me there is a chance some random teenage girls may attempt to stop them!

Anyway, after that interruption I soon had the camera all set up and managed to take a few AVIs which I have since processed with the best result shown below.

I then decided to go all out and attempted to use the 2x Barlow in order to increase the magnification.

Even with a fair it of processing I haven't managed to clean up the image as much as I would have liked but I still think it was okay for a first attempt.

Overall I was glad I managed to at least get out one more time before the Summer nights get to light for me to really appreciate the night sky. It was even more special that I used this potentially final night of the astronomy season to see Saturn which I had never seen before. I hope the next time I see it I can try and capture an even better image but I suspect it will be difficult with the gear I currently have.