Saturn Ring Quest: Stage 2

3:47 AM Tuesday.

Well, I have made it through stage 2 of my quest to view Saturn's rings with my telescope. I am counting Sunday's post titled Isolating Christian Astronomy: From Heliocentrism and the Primordial Singularity to the Rings of Saturn as stage 1 of this particular endeavor.

My telescope is a PolarLink 102 Refractor. I bought it at a bargain price through Amazon back in July of 2023, half assembled it as soon I received it and then let it sit until I took it out for the first time yesterday evening. It was meant to be a long-term investment, but I didn't think it would take me this long to get back to it.

As a total beginner, there is a good argument that I should have gotten an AZ mount, and I have to confess that I am kicking myself a bit now, because this EQ mount is challenging me to think on an intermediate level.

Then again, it is possible I am closer than I think to learning what God wants and needs me to learn from this particular aspect of Christian astronomy. I don't know yet. In retrospect, it looks like there are two main things I was supposed to take away from yesterday's Saturn ring quest: first, the coordinates of Saturn during my viewing window, and second, the overall experience of making that particular effort.   

With respect to Saturn's position, all I have time to say right now is that it seems to have something to do with learning more about the Aries Point in the Equatorial Coordinate system.

With respect to the overall experience of making that particular effort, it was a joy to show my mom a view of the waxing crescent Moon without her having to leave the back deck, and it was a hardship to isolate Saturn's rings through average seeing using that telescope under those circumstances with my beginner's hands and mind. There were some other hardships involved. How many more observations does God need or want me to make with this telescope before I hand it off to another student on the path? Few, or many? If only a few, am I willing to consider the expense worth it, or should I do penance for spending too much on this lesson at the expense of some other?  

Alright, well in closing, maybe there is a third lesson for me to ponder in all of this. Can I really separate the Christian astronomical and the Abrahamic astrological? How did the Moon and Jupiter soften the sternness of Saturn's teaching about limits to growth in this observation? Is that kind of observation more an expression of metaphysical naturalism or Sumero-Greco-Judeo-Roman-Turtle Island monotheism?

Now I need to move on.

End 8:51 PM.

P.S. Transit chart of the Saturn observation is for 6:00 PM on Monday, 24 November 2025 in Albany, NY.