Saturn currently has 274 known moons, ranging in size from planet-like Titan to others that are essentially large rocks less than a mile wide. Last night (16 Jan) a SkyWatcher SkyMax 102 Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope was used to track down Hyperion, the eighth largest moon of Saturn. Hyperion has an irregular shape, with its longest dimension being about 224 mi (360 km). It is a dim moon with a visual magnitude of 14+.
The sky looked clear at 7:30 pm, but as darkness increased a thin cloud layer was visible. This increased the difficulty of an otherwise successful capture of Hyperion.
The SkyMax 102 has a nominal focal length of 1300 mm and an aperture of 102 mm (4 in.). It was used with an Olympus E-M5iii camera.
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| Five of Saturn's largest moons. 20 sec, ISO 1600. |
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| Hyperion to the left of overexposed Saturn. 30 sec, ISO 1600. |
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| Predicted moon positions. Credit: SkySafariAstronomy.com |
The SkyMax 102 was also used with a front-mounted solar filter to image some large sunspots currently traversing the sun:
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| 16 Jan |
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| 17 Jan |
With this telescope the sun's projected image barely fits on the micro-four-thirds sensor.
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