Unexpected business led me to visit the observatory Tuesday night. Since I was there and the sky was nicely clear, I decided to open the dome and do a little observing.
Orion is low in the west these nights and the great nebula (M42) was actually only visible through the bare limbs of the neighbor's trees. The view was splendid, however, and at low magnification the cloudy expanse took on a fan shape. The stars of the Trapezium were clearly displayed, nestled in the gauze.
Using star Sirius to set R.A. and my notebook computer's The Sky software to find the coordinates, I was able to use the telescope's ancient dials to locate the "twin" star clusters M46 and M47 — not visible to the unaided eye this night. Declination settings are not visible on the old scope so I had to do some fishing. Still, it was gratifying to be able to get in the right neighborhood using the telescope's century-old devices. The clusters were more attractive through binoculars –a fuzzy path glowing path across the view– than through the telescope though, at low magnification, M46 filled the eyepiece with diamond-dust stars.
Turning the telescope further east as the Moon was rising, I located Saturn. The ring system is still close to edge-on and opposition took place only a few days earlier (March 22). Through the fist-sized, low-magnification eyepiece the planet was crisp and bright. Faintly visible in the field of view were tiny glowing dots — some of the Ring World's family of moons. It was a lovely sight. I had my camera with me so tried a few afocal (hand-held, lens-to-eyepiece) shots. I got a fairly good image (seen here, cropped to imitate an eyepiece view) that depicts the ring plane's angle and even hints at the rings' shadow on the planetary body. Of course, the moons don't show at all being much too dim compared with Saturn.
I closed up at about 10 PM with the Full Worm Moon rising and drowning out the light-songs of everything nearby. It was a good night of unexpected astronomy.
PhotonStopper 
That is awesome. Is the observatory near where you live? How fascinating. I sure wish we had had that here when my daughter was supposed to be locating the constellations for school a month ago (and we had so many foggy nights!!).
The observatory I am privileged to run is, unfortunately, about an hour from my home. A bit of a drive but at least the skies are reasonably dark on a clear night. There are some excellent online resources for those seeking to learn the constellations including sites that will generate accurate sky charts for your location, time, and date — no observatory necessary. Still, there's nothing like looking through a good telescope at Saturn or the Moon to excite an interest in astronomy. — JG
I imagine that would be an unforgettable experience, to look through a good telescope!
THAT is uber cool!
Observatories around the country regularly offer "public nights" when all are invited to look through the telescopes. Those are often the older observatories but the telescopes are amazing. Views of the Moon and planets like Saturn and Jupiter offer real "wow factors." See if there's one near you! — JG