Posted on 07/21/2015 1:12:25 PM PDT by BenLurkin
Sure, you’ve seen the Jovian moons do their dance, and Titan is old friend for many a star party patron as they check out the rings of Saturn… but have you ever spotted Triton or Amalthea?
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One of the key challenges in spotting many of the fainter moons is the fact that they lie so close inside the glare of their respective host planet. For example, +11th magnitude Phobos wouldn’t be all that tough on its own, were it not for the fact that it always lies close to dazzling Mars. 10 magnitudes equals a 10,000-fold change in brightness, and the fact that most of these moons are swapped out is what makes them so tough to see. This is also why many of them weren’t discovered until later on.
But don’t despair. One thing you can use that’s relatively easy to construct is an occulting bar eyepiece. This will allow you to hide the dazzle of the planet behind the bar while scanning the suspect area to the side for the faint moon. Large aperture, steady skies, and well collimated optics are a must as well, and don’t be afraid to crank up the magnification in your quest. We mentioned using such a technique previously as a method to tease out the white dwarf star Sirius b in the years to come.
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What follows is a comprehensive list of the well known ‘easy ones,’ along with some challenges.
(Excerpt) Read more at universetoday.com ...
Titan and Rhea imaged via Iphone and a Celestron NexStar 8SE telescope.
Image credit: Andrew Symes (@failedprotostar)
ping
I’ve never had luck with the Martian moons, though I do have an occluding bar on a lens.
Ceres is quiet easy (ok, not a moon, but, it’s about the size of a moon)
Of course the 4 Jovian, I’ve seen those with 7x35 binos on a good night.
Saturn looks like it has little diamonds sprinkled around. I’ve seen 6 or 7 at a time.
Never seen Uranus’ or Neptune’s moons, though I may give it a whirl this fall when they come around. Uranus is quite easy to spot, a nice green world. Neptune tends to look like the rest of the sky, grey and dark.
I’ve seen just about all of the planets. . but I just don’t want to see Uranus!
Hur Hur Hur!
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