Saturn never fails to please people who are seeing it for the first time. At an outreach a couple of weeks ago, I had the pleasure of observing the faces of people looking through my scope at it and watching their expressions of disbelief.

Brian mentioned an 80A filter for use on Saturn. Instead of buying different filters for each of the different planets, I find that the Baader Moon & SkyGlow filter is a terrific Swiss Army knife of filters, great on all the solar system objects. Mine lives on the end of my diagonal; I never take it off. The first time I used it was on Jupiter, and the Great Red Spot popped right into view, where before I had to observe it with averted vision, mainly through its absence - the little notch in the equatorial belt where it resides.

On Saturn, it helps split the A and B rings to reveal the Cassini Division, and lets me see banding on the surface. On Mars, it lets me see the surface albedo features easier. And on the moon, it removes glare, making it easier to see more detail. I don't know how it does it, but it does it well.

 

Hmmm, I used the Ultrablock filter while viewing the moon and it works surprisingly well. The view of Saturn was a bit unrealistic for me and I took off the filter right away I suppose without giving it a real chance to impress....blue Saturn was too weird.

 

I got to see Saturn at Opposition this year, although I was only a couple of days out last year (due to weather). It's still looking good at my latitude and I managed to observe it around Transit (22:24 BST, 17.3° altitude, Ophiuchus) last night when the transparency and clouds allowed me.



As the transparency wasn't brilliant I decided to observe at 150x with an Abbe orthoscopic without any kind of filter. I can normally easily get 250x on Saturn and I also regularly employ a Baader Neodymium filter. Playing hide and seek with the clouds for a while I managed to observe Saturn for a good 40 mins or so. I could quite easily make out the Cassini Division, some cloud detail and Titan was clearly visible. It's always nice to see Saturn again.



This Astro Hutech 6mm gives me 150x on my Newtonian. It is small and simple, so maximising available light in the less than satisfactory conditions. Usually I'd use a bigger eyepiece combined with a Barlow. The draw tube on this isn't the stock smooth chromed brass one that was supplied with it. Normally I'm not a fan of undercuts but this works with the focuser on my Newtonian and also enables standard M28.5x0.6 filter threads to be used.



The little Hutech orthoscopic gave me very clear contrasted views of Saturn unfiltered, considering the conditions, but I often find a standard Wratten #11 Yellow-Green filter is exceptionally good for Saturn and does a lot to make the cloud detail more apparent. It also can make the Cassini Division far more visible, so if you're having difficulties making it out I recommend the #11 Yellow-Green filter.