Maybe there is hope for me
I discovered a few days ago there was going to be a rare occurrence of a transit of Titan across Saturn last night. Locally it started around 8:30 so our plans were to set up the telescope to watch from around that time. Unfortunately the skies weren’t at all clear when the time neared so we opted not to waste our time. Instead the Scientist and I watched the episode of Good News Week we had recorded Monday night before he had to be off to bed.
Our washing machine was finally returned yesterday and I finally had some clean clothes to hang out and did so after the Scientist had gone to sleep. I had a dilemma when I realised the skies had cleared considerably because I have never made use of the telescope on my own and our expert was in bed. I decided to have a go and take the telescope out. It’s a pretty big contraption but I managed to shuffle my way out with it with little ado, aside from scraping my foot on the bricks outside.
Although I’ve watched the Scientist set everything up before, I felt completely clueless once I got out there. I did, of course, know enough to take off the big cover to the reflector but then I was a bit stumped. But wait, the barrel was turned the wrong way and the scope and lens holder were rendered rather useless on the underside. First thing was to turn it around and so I accomplished my second act of bravery with expensive equipment for the night. (Of course this morning I realised that I didn’t need to turn it over but to turn the platform and flip it the opposite direction so the effort wasn’t needed. Bad brain!) The lenses were all in their holders along the side of the Dobsonian mount but how to get one onto the contraption? I thought more about this and remembered to remove the caps from the finder scope which was a bit of a start. Of course I really didn’t know where to find Saturn in the night sky. I had a general idea of where we’d seen it before and remembered it being bright enough to be distinguished from some other objects in the sky. I came inside to start up Stellarium on the computer and Lego Lover soon joined me outside in our search of the skies.
I still hadn’t worked out how to put one of the lenses on. It wasn’t so much I was clueless on how to accomplish this but I was worried about messing something up and was very hesitant. I finally took the plunge, undid some screws and removed a cap to where the lens was supposed to be place. I chose a lens and stuck that on and tightened the screws. Wow! I actually did it because I could see the sky through the lens.
With Lego Lover helping I did find some night sky objects but nothing resembling Saturn. I was quite pleased with myself because my previous attempts to use the ‘scope with help from the Scientist had me too self-conscious, I guess, and I just ended up more confused than ever. But I did manage to find one bright object high in the sky even though I wasn’t sure what it was and saw it through the lens. (Later I found out it was Sirius!) Lego Lover was impressed but we knew it wasn’t Saturn, of course. We continued looking for some time and I wondered whether it would be advisable to wake the Scientist from slumber considering that he had an earlier than usual morning coming up.
We went back and forth from Stellarium on the computer to the telescope outside but still couldn’t work out where Saturn was. Lego Lover did work out approximately which part of the sky but nothing seemed quite bright enough that it would be distinguised as Saturn. Eventually I did wake the Scientist and after some time, he did locate Saturn. It was really cool to see it last night. The rings seemed to be completely side on, which is a rare view indeed.
Our attempts to see Titan were futile and we didn’t see Mimas, Dione, and Encladeus moons which were also going to transit Saturn around the same time. Quite some time later we gave it up as a lost cause. But it was so impressive to see Saturn side-on that it was all worth it. There’s another transit occurring on the 12th of March so maybe we will have more success that time. Most importantly I realised there is hope I will figure out this telescope stuff yet.
