Saturn at Opposition

3-4 August 2021, 23:30 – 01:30 (BST)

Having spent a good portion of the day walking round Stodmarsh Nature Reserve (for the first time in forever) in dazzling sunshine, my eyes weren’t really up for the challenge of observing faint objects, so I spent most of the session in the company of the two giant planets.

I caught Jupiter just as the GRS was disappearing around the limb. Unfortunately the neighbour’s tree seems to have put on a growth spurt, so I may not get an uninterrupted view of Jupiter this year after all.

Saturn was a couple of days past opposition, with the rings still glowing brightly, and I was even able to grab a half-decent image (below):

Titan and several moons were visible through the eyepiece, with Rhea, Dione and Tethys in a straight line just north of the planet.

I also had a quick look at NGC 7814 at 240x. Despite my eyes being nowhere near properly dark-adapted, I was still able to see Supernova 2021rhu. It was difficult to judge its brightness, but it seemed to have faded to somewhere around 13th magnitude.