Some planets are easy to find in the night sky, while only one is usually difficult. That’s because Venus, Jupiter and Mars at their closest are all brighter than any star, plus Mars has an obvious orange color. Mercury can get absolutely brilliant, and always has a position down low in morning or evening twilight that makes it distinctive. But Saturn? Though arguably the most beautiful planet in the known universe, it doesn’t readily stand out. It’s somewhat bright but not super bright. Many ordinary stars are brighter than Saturn. And it lacks any distinctive color. How could you locate it? If you own a telescope, even a super cheap model, you’d only need 30x magnification to see its amazing rings. So again, all that remains is to find it.
But that difficulty is about to vanish. This coming Wednesday and Thursday nights, September 7th and 8th, Saturn is the very nearest star to the Moon. Simple. And since Saturn reached its annual near-point to Earth just three weeks ago, it happens to be as big as possible. Normally it would also be getting to maximum brightness too, but that’s now changing because its rings are slowly becoming oriented more and more sideways. They’ll be completely edgewise in just another three years, but they’re edgewise enough to visibly alter Saturn’s brilliance. That’s because the rings are simply chunks of water ice, some only the size of beach balls, and are therefore very bright and shiny. When those rings go from angling face-wise like they’ve been the past eight years and become closer to edgewise, Saturn appears only half as bright in the night sky. That process is now underway.
Which is why it’s a good thing that the Moon will step in this week to act as an usher, a guide, and let us positively identify the awesome ringed world in about one second. Especially if you own a telescope, it’s an opportunity that shouldn’t be missed.
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