[AZ-Observing] Saturn's Rings - A Serious Observation

The seeing was never sub-arcsecond at the All-Arizona Star Party, but it
was good enough to permit magnifications higher than 300x.  I viewed Saturn
through a number of excellent telescopes, including Rick Scott's
Lurie-Houghton, Adam D'Agosto's 14-inch with Schwaar optics and mount, Mike
Spooner's 20-inch Newtonian, and an unbelievably competitive view through a
"stock" Orion 6-inch at 400x (!).  Then there was my 20-inch, which made me
want to cry tears of self-pity.  Ugh.

Anyway, Frank Kraljic called me over to his 10-inch Spooner scope to look
at the inner edge of the B ring, where it meets the C ring.  He told me to
compare the east and west sides of the ball of Saturn.  What a difference!
The west side fit my mental image perfectly, with the beige B ring meeting
the gray Crepe ring with a sharp edge.  On the east side of the globe,
however, the inside edge of the B ring was very diffuse and irregular --
nothing like the other side.  I wouldn't call these features "spokes" in
the sense that conjures up sharp radial lines, but there were certainly
broad, irregular features that radiated away from the planet.  Did anybody
else see these features in the late morning hours that night?

Tom

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Tom Polakis
Tempe, AZ
Arizona Sky Pages
http://www.psiaz.com/polakis/
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