Saturn, lord of the rings, draws near
The planet Saturn is a wonderful sight through even the smallest of telescopes. It has its own special and unique beauty, made up of a gorgeous ring system which spans more than 135,000 miles in diameter circling a planet that has a girth of 75,000 miles.
Now is the time to see Saturn, because this month the ringed wonder is less than 763 million miles away and it's visible all night long.
While Saturn passes about this close to Earth every year, something astronomers call opposition, Saturn won't be this close to Earth again until 2029.
That's because of the slightly oblong nature of its orbit around the sun combined with the not-quite circular nature of Earth's orbit. The bottom line here is that you should beg, borrow, or do whatever you have to this month to see Saturn through a telescope. Maybe you received one for Christmas. Now is the time for telescoping the lord of the rings!
To find Saturn, look in the low eastern sky around 7 to 8 p.m. for the brightest starlike object you can see. That's it, that's Saturn. It's just to the upper left of the star Regulus, the brightest star in the constellation Leo the Lion.
For the rest of the night Saturn will take a high arc across the southern half of the sky and won't set until sunrise. It's pulling an "all nighter!" We'll actually have a great view of Saturn in the evening skies until early summer, although it will rise later and later each night and will be farther and farther away.
Saturn is one of the gas giants of the solar system, made up mainly of hydrogen and helium, and by itself is not all that exciting to look at through a telescope.
The ring system, though, is a whole other story. While the rings span more than 135,000 miles in diameter, they are only about 10 to 15 miles thick and are made up of billions and billions of ice covered rocks ranging from the size of dust grains to boulders bigger than garbage trucks.
It's believed that they are the pulverized remains of one or two of Saturn's moons that wandered a little too close to Saturn in their lopsided orbits and were literally blown to bits by the planet's tremendous gravitational tides.
If your view of Saturn is clear enough, you may see that the ring system is actually a family of thinner rings complete with gaps. The biggest gap, which looks like a "black ring," is close to the outer edge of the ring system.
It's called the Cassini Division and is well over 2,500 miles wide. Cassini is also the name of the spacecraft that's been orbiting Saturn the last few years and sending back some wonderful pictures and information. It's even sent back the sounds of thunder and lightning coming from storms in Saturn's turbulent atmosphere.
Enjoy the ring system of Saturn as much as you can because it's about to disappear on us. It's not actually going away, but because Saturn's rings are tilted with respect to its orbit around sun, about every 15 years the rings appear "edge on" to us on Earth.Since the ring system is only about 15 to 20 miles thick, they pretty much disappear from our vantage point. Unfortunately this is going to happen in 2009, and from now to until then our view of Saturn's rings will gradually deteriorate. This is just another reason to get Saturn in your telescope this month.Along with the rings, you may also see little tiny star like objects surrounding Saturn. These are some of Saturn's many orbiting moons. You'll notice a decidedly bright moon, Titan, is one of the largest moons in our solar system.When viewing Saturn through any telescope, patience is a huge virtue. First, wait until at least 9 p.m. to start viewing Saturn through your telescope. That will let it rise high enough in the sky to avoid the murky effect of Earth's atmosphere.As with any celestial object, the lower it is in the sky, the more of Earth's atmosphere you have to visually plow through. In fact if you're a real late nighter, the midnight hour is even better, as Saturn reaches its highest spot in the sky.No matter how late you wait to telescope Saturn, it's very important to take long uninterrupted views of it.You need to get your eye used to the light level in the eyepiece field. This also helps because the clarity of Saturn can vary from minute to minute and even second by second due to high winds in the Earth's atmosphere.Also, whenever you use a telescope during the winter, make sure you let it sit outside in the cold so the optics can acclimate to the temperature. Along with that, remember that whatever you're viewing through the scope, start out using a lower magnification eyepiece and then work your way up to the higher powers. The tricky thing here is that the higher the magnification of Saturn, or anything else, the fuzzier it will appear.Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and author of the book, "Pennsylvania Starwatch," available at bookstores and at his Webs site www.lynchandthestars.com
