The Moon and the Sickle<\/a><\/p>\nSaturn rules the early-morning sky, shining at 1st magnitude in otherwise dim Pisces the Fish. One of the ringed planet\u2019s many moons, Dione, passes due north of Saturn the morning of June 19. The 10th-magnitude moon\u2019s progress is visible if you\u2019ve got a dark sky and a telescope.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Two hours before sunrise, Saturn is nearly 20\u00b0 high in the east. It\u2019s easy to find as the brightest light in this part of the sky, skimming the border between southern Pisces and northern Cetus. Through a telescope, you\u2019ll of course see Saturn\u2019s stunning ring system, and should also easily pick up its largest and brightest moon, Titan, just northwest of the planet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dione \u2014 again, magnitude 10 \u2014 is much closer to the planet than Titan and lies northeast of Saturn. As the hours pass, it draws closer, passing due north of Saturn shortly before 4:30 A.M. PDT \u2014 note the time zone, as at this point the planet and moon will only be visible along the U.S. West Coast. The farther west you are, the better, as the sky is likely already growing light. See if you can identify Dione roughly an arcsecond above the planet\u2019s north pole, despite the slowly brightening twilight; you might also try snapping a quick photo if you\u2019ve got the setup, as that may show Dione\u2019s position even if your eyes can\u2019t find it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sunrise: 5:31 A.M.
Sunset: 8:32 P.M.
Moonrise: 10:41 A.M.
Moonset: \u2014
Moon Phase: Waxing crescent (32%)
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\n
Alison Klesman\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List Saturn\u2019s small moon Dione crosses north of the ringed planet early on the morning…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":507642,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123],"class_list":["post-507641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=507641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/507641\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/507642"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=507641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=507641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=507641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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