What began as an A-one observing session early on Thursday morning quickly ended under a blanket of cirrus cloud. I had planned on taking a look at Messier 13 and Messier 92 in the constellation of Hercules, but it seemed that the weather had other ideas.
On a scale of 1 to 5, I’d say visibility was around 3 - I could still see some of the brighter stars but it was like trying to peer through an opaque window. Using the 10×50s I drifted down from Mizar and Alcor in Ursa Major and landed on what I thought (at the time) was eta Herculis and pi Herculis but was in fact iota Draconis and theta Draconis. I really didn’t realise how off target I was, but even if I had been in the right part of the sky, M13 and M92 were probably lost to me anyway.
After half an hour of fruitless searching I decided to abandon these two DSOs for another night when conditions were less stringent. As I turned to head back in doors I saw the glimmer of Saturn above the roof tops towards the south and decided to break out the 25×100s for a closer look. This time around Titan was not as bright (due to visibility) and took on an almost pink hue while Saturn offered up a rather vexing surprise. As I foucused on the distant gas giant I could make out a thin, very faint line running through the planetary disc. As I gazed through the large bins I really began to question what I was seeing. Were my eye’s decieving me or was I observing the rings of Saturn? I took the time to make a quick sketch of the observation in my notebook which I then transposed into a digital render. While this could have been my eye’s playing tricks on me, I think sometimes you’ve just got to trust your own vision and go with what you’ve observed. Seeing is believing and believing is seeing as they say.