Australians looking up to the night sky this weekend could be in for a treat, with Saturn about to put on one of its best shows of the year.
The giant planet reaches its brightest and most impressive point in the night sky on Sunday when Earth passes between Saturn and the Sun.
The good news is you won’t need expensive equipment to see it.
Astronomer Dr Tanya Hill said Saturn would be visible across Australia, rising in the east after sunset before travelling across the northern sky overnight.
“Sunday is optimal, but really anytime in the next few weeks will be ideal,” Hill told Yahoo News Australia.
ANU astrophysicist Dr Brad Tucker said Saturn would rise around sunset and become easier to see once it climbed higher above the eastern horizon.
“If you wait about an hour after it rises, an hour or so after sunset, it will get high enough in the eastern sky to enjoy and will be visible all night,” he told Yahoo News Australia.
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Saturn’s rings are one of the easiest features to pick out through a modest backyard telescope, and their changing tilt means they are becoming more noticeable again from Earth after appearing almost edge-on.
(NASA)How to spot Saturn from your backyard
Saturn will look much like a bright star to the naked eye, but there is one handy trick for telling the planet apart from the stars around it.
It doesn’t twinkle.
“Saturn looks like a reasonably bright star in the sky, and the main thing that makes it stand out is that it doesn’t twinkle as stars do,” Hill said.
If you still have no idea what you are looking at, she recommends apps such as Stellarium or Star Walk, which can point you in the right direction.
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Tucker said planets also follow the ecliptic — the imaginary path across the sky marking the plane of our solar system.
“Across the sky, it forms an arc and all the planets line up on it,” he said.
“Right now, we have Venus in the western sky about the same time for another week or so as well.”
Earth will be directly between Saturn and the Sun this weekend, appearing brightly in the night sky. Picture: NASA
(NASA)Got a telescope? It gets much better
You don’t need any equipment to see Saturn itself, but a small backyard telescope can reveal its famous rings — and they may not look quite how you expect.
Saturn’s tilt changes from our point of view over the years, and right now the rings are being seen much more side-on.
“Right now, we are looking at it right on its side so the rings appear as a line across Saturn and going out away from the planet,” Tucker said.
There also might be an easier way to find Saturn later this month.
“On Saturday 24 October, the almost Full Moon will sit just to the left of Saturn,” Hill said.
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