8+ inch Teleskop für die Beobachtung von Hyperion gesucht

This afternoon I chatted with Cassini mission planner Amanda Hendrix about the upcoming icy satellite flybys (Calypso at about 90,000 km on the 23rd, Tethys at 1,500 km on the 24th, and Hyperion at about 500 km on the 26th!).

Das heisst Cassini wird in den nächsten Tage die Monde von Saturn ins Visier nehmen. Da aber Hyperion sich aber auf eine eher unkonventionelle Art dreht, er wird auch als “chaotic rotator”, sind zusätzliche photometrische Aufnahmen dem Cassini Team nützlich.

Photometric observations beginning right now and going through the Cassini flyby would be very helpful to the team. But you have to have a pretty big telescope to get photometric observations on Hyperion; Amanda said that it’s about magnitude -16.5, and that you’d need a 24-inch (roughly 60-centimeter) telescope at least. So I’m trying to get the word out for her. If you are reading this, and happen to have a 24-inch scope lying around (ha!) that’s not busy, please point it at Hyperion, and send me an email! blog aat planetary.org (via Planetary Society blog)

Raus mit den Fernrohren und viele Fotos von Hyperion an die Damen und Herren des Cassini Teams. Vielleicht ein kleines Foto für mich?
update: Auch ein kleineres Teleskop würde schon reichen!

One may need a substantial telescope in order to see Hyperion through an eyepiece with your own eye, but a CCD on even a modest (~ 8-inch) telescope can make a long exposure and observe Hyperion quite easily.
“Also, not to nitpick about numbers, but a quick check (i.e. Google) on the V magnitude of Hyperion comes up 14.2, not 16.5. That is an estimate of its magnitude at opposition (which we are nowhere near… the phase angle now is more than 6 deg.), so it will be dimmer than 14.2, but not by more than 2 magnitudes.(via Anne Verbiscer on planetary society