{"id":921177,"date":"2026-10-05T06:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T06:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/921177\/"},"modified":"2026-10-05T06:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-05T06:14:08","slug":"starwatch-how-to-spot-saturn-as-it-makes-it-closest-approach-to-earth-this-year-saturn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/921177\/","title":{"rendered":"Starwatch: how to spot Saturn as it makes it closest approach to Earth this year | Saturn"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">This week offers an excellent opportunity to track down <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/science\/saturn\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Saturn<\/a>. The giant planet, situated about 10 times further from the sun than the Earth, reached opposition on 4 October. In this configuration, Earth is passing almost directly between the planet and the sun.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">This makes opposition an excellent time to see a planet: the distant world rises as the sun sets, remains visible throughout the night and sets around sunrise. It is also at about its closest point to Earth for the year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Saturn is easily visible to the naked eye, looking like a moderately bright, creamy-white object. Unlike most stars, however, its light remains steady rather than noticeably twinkling.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">The chart shows the view looking east- south-east from London at 2100 BST on 5 October. By this time, Saturn is already well clear of the horizon and will continue climbing higher as the evening progresses. It lies beneath the Great Square of Pegasus, which provides a distinctive signpost to the planet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Saturn is currently shining at about magnitude +0.3. Once you have identified it, try returning to it on subsequent evenings. Unlike the surrounding stars, Saturn slowly changes position as it travels against the background constellations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1s160rg\">Although the planet itself is an easy naked-eye target, you will need a small telescope to see its famous rings. From the southern hemisphere, Saturn is even better placed, climbing higher into the sky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This week offers an excellent opportunity to track down Saturn. The giant planet, situated about 10 times further&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":921178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[49,48,66,306],"class_list":["post-921177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=921177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/921178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=921177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=921177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=921177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}