In my first proper full-color photo of it, here we get a view of the iconic gas giant, Saturn!

This is my inaugural Saturn photo from the club's C14 scope, and I'm very encouraged by the quality of images I'm starting to get from it.  After a quick look at the splendid Cassini Division (the large gap in the rings, originally discovered by Giovanni Domenico Cassini in 1675), we can see some more delicate features courtesy of the giant aperture of this scope.  First, some separation in the cloud bands has become evident throughout the northern hemisphere of the planet, a feature we're quite used to seeing on images of Jupiter, but a more fleeting feature with Saturn because of the lower contrast difference between them.  These faint clouds have little else that is unremarkable about them, boasting wind speeds up to 1800 km/h (1120 mph)!

An even fainter feature is evident on this photo as well, and may be considered the "prize" of this capture.  On the northern pole of Saturn sits a very curious hexagonal cloud, and in this image, we can barely glean 3 edges of it.  The cloud represents one of the most fascinating features of any planet, the source of which remains a subject of much speculation today.  Through the fairly poor atmospheric conditions of St. Louis, I was really surprised to have been able to get it to present itself, but doing so leaves me even more encouraged with the splendid captures that await from this scope as I further learn how to tame its nuances and get the most from it.