You don’t necessarily need to have the fanciest optical equipment to obtain a good visual. In terms of planetary observation, Saturn is a relatively easy telescopic target.
Nowadays, there are many applications that make finding planets in the night sky a lot easier. It’s not hard to do: Saturn tends to have a yellowish glow and it does not twinkle as much as the stars. This will give your telescope an approximate alignment.įor smaller telescopes, you will have to identify find the planet with your naked eye first. Your instrument will make some calculation between sky coordinates (where are celestial objects currently positioned in the sky) and the telescope coordinates (where you are positioned on the Earth). If you happen to own a computerised telescope (or go-to telescope), you will simply need to align it first then enter some navigational information such as latitude and longitude, your current time and time zone, etc. At this point, it will be clearly visible every night then slip into the evening twilight at the end of the year. During that time frame, Saturn will rise and set two hours earlier every month. This year, the ringed planet hangs out around the Sagittarius constellation and will be visible in the early morning sky until it reaches opposition around the 9th of July. This means that from our point of view, we can find Saturn positioned in the same constellation for 2.5 years until it moves on to the next constellation.
RINGS OF SATURN THROUGH TELESCOPE FULL
Saturn is really far from the Sun and takes about 29.5 years to complete one full orbit around it. It really gives us a sense that our universe is truly a big place, and that experience makes us feel truly small. It is the kind of moment that makes any beginners with a telescope feel all the effort was worth it. In my experience, when people observe the ringed planet for the first time, they usually hardly believe that it is not a photograph or some simulated image. From all the planets that can be observed, Saturn is the best one to see in a small telescope because it is always quite bright and it looks great even with at a modest magnification power.Įven with an amateur telescope, the image is really beautiful, especially if the atmosphere above you is stable and offer good seeing opportunity: you will be able to enjoy a clear image of many of the planet’s features when observing on colder nights. You do not need to own an expensive or very powerful refracting / reflecting telescope to observe it satisfyingly. Saturn through a telescope is something everyone should see at least once. Galileo Galilei was the first person to ever observe Saturn through an antique telescope in 1610 and now, a few hundred years later, it is quite easy to look at the same planet with a much better instrument that he had at the time. It was in the backyard of my parent’s house and I was absolutely dumbfounded and just stared at it for more than an hour or so, looking back and forth from the eyepiece to naked-eye, enchanted that the pinpoint of light I could see through my telescope was actually a planet. I’ll never forget the first time I saw Saturn through my brand new home telescope. Saturn is quite simply my favourite celestial object to observe in the night sky.
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