10-Feb-99

Tonight, I've looked at the Saturn again, but this time, I've made careful observation and waiting so that I could get 30 minutes of observing time on the Saturn before it disappeared from my little observing window.

I've made a temporary light shield by wrapping a paper around the objective. Contrast should be improved, since I could see much less stray reflection from the objective side. I've also used a cloth to cover my head during observation to block stray light. However, the light pollution here is just too worst, I could read the star charts without using my own lamp.

Cassini Division was my target, however, only a hint was suspected. By switching among the eyepieces and barlows, I couldn't make it out exactly and confidently. I found it was hard to use averted vision on planets, however, it is easy for the satellite. When I was looking at the planet disc, the satellite (Titan) appeared very clearly; when I looked at it directly, it nearly disappeared. I could see that the ring is rather wide, however, the Cassini Division is still not confirmed. A bit disappointed.

Later in the night, I looked at the Orion Nebula. Before the view was cleared, I looked at the zeta orion. I found that it's a pair of nice double stars, probably my first double star target. The Ranger could split it in 15x and I've tried to push up to 381x and the view was still nice. Good!

The light pollution has affected the whole view of the nebula, and it was quite different then the view in another sub-urban area. The Nebula has become very small, even with the filter and nearly disappeared without the filter. However, by pushing the magnification up to 120x, the view became quite good. When looking at the Nebula at 120x, my attention was caught to the trapezium. I guess it was the first time I really saw the trapezium. Four stars were all visible, and they're covered by the nebula. A very nice view I would say. By pushing it further up to 240x, the field of view became smaller, but not much detail could be seen.