Watch Saturn In The Sky At Its Best This Friday

This Friday, June 3, Saturn reaches opposition to the sun. Directly opposite the sun in our sky, the ringed planet rises as the sun sets and sets as the sun rises, remaining visible all night.

Saturn

If we draw a straight line from the Sun to Saturn, that line would pass through earth this Friday, 3rd June.

This means that the Sun’s light which is reflected back by Saturn would reach earth by taking the shortest path possible and therefore make Saturn appear much more brighter. It is best seen when it is at its highest, at around midnight local time, 1 a.m. daylight saving time. At that time, observers in the Northern Hemisphere can see the planet due south.

Unfortunately, the beautiful rings of this heavenly planet will not be visible with the naked eye or binoculars. To see the rings in detail you need a telescope with a magnification of at least 100 times.

Saturn rings

Currently you can see the northern side of the rings, which looks like a sphere itself  because the north pole of Saturn is tilted towards the Earth.  Although Saturn has more than 60 moons, they will be hard to see with the naked eye although a decent sized telescope can give an wonderful view of some of the bigger moons like Titan.