![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0016fec3-614.jpg\"\/)
\nA digital still of the planet Venus<\/p>\n
Saturn will be visible in the night sky as a bright star in the south this weekend, while Venus passes behind the moon on Friday, just after noon.<\/p>\n
Astronomy Ireland is setting up giant telescopes to show Saturn up close on Saturday, while Venus can be seen in broad daylight with the naked eye.<\/p>\n
“This year, the rings are almost edge on a sight that only happens on average every 15 years so anyone seeing it in a big telescope will get an extremely rare view,” said astronomer David Moore.<\/p>\n
“Without a doubt, Saturn is the most incredible object we ever show the general public in our giant telescopes. They transform a bright ‘dot’ in the sky with the naked eye to a huge globe with cloud belts and rings.<\/p>\n
“We can see up to six of its moons which are far too faint to see with the naked eye, but the powerful telescopes can pick them up easily,” he said.<\/p>\n
\nA digital still of the planet Venus<\/p>\n
“Probably less than one in a million people on Earth have ever seen Saturn, its rings and its moons up close like this.”<\/p>\n
For those hoping to see Venus, he said that it can be seen between 12.40pm and 12.45pm as well as 2pm and 2.05pm tomorrow.<\/p>\n
“The trick is to stand in the shadow of a building, so the sun is covered and not shining directly into your eyes. Then look about twice your hand-span at arm’s length to the right of the sun,” Mr Moore said.<\/p>\n
He added that depending on where you are in Ireland, Venus will fade over the course of 30 seconds as the edge of the moon slowly covers it.<\/p>\n
“If you have binoculars or a small telescope, take a close up look for an incredibly rare sight you may never see again in your lifetime.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Saturn will be visible in the night sky as a bright star in the south this weekend, while…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[90,416,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-145843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}