Without a doubt, Saturn is the best thing to see through a telescope, even small telescopes.

If you’ve seen it, you know what I’m talking about, and if you haven’t, do whatever you can to get a look see of Saturn.

I know of many lifelong amateur astronomers who first fell in love with the hobby and/or obsession after that first look at Saturn through a telescope. It’s an absolute joy for me at my star parties to show Saturn to children through my telescopes. I never get sick of the variety of reactions — the oohs and ahs, wows, holy cow, sweet and more.

How and when you use a telescope to observe Saturn does make a difference in what you see and I’ll hopefully give you some helpful tips later in the edition of Starwatch.

Saturn is now back in our evening skies and it’s available for your oohs and ahs all night long because it rises at sunset and sets at sunrise.

Early this month, it achieved what astronomers call opposition. As you can see in the diagram, that’s when the Earth lies in a line between the sun and Saturn. Not only does that make the ringed wonder of our solar system available all night, but it also puts Saturn at its minimum distance to Earth. Saturn opposition occurs every 378 days.

Just after evening twilight, look in the low southeastern sky for the brightest starlight object you can see and that’ll be Saturn.

Make sure you don’t confuse it with the very bright star Arcturus that’s more to the east and a little higher in the sky. Arcturus has a definite orange-red tinge to it as well.

The star Spica is down and to the left of Saturn and not quite as bright.

The nearly full moon will also help you find Saturn Saturday night. The moon will be hanging just to the lower right of Saturn.

Even though Saturn and Earth are at their closest approach to each other for 2011, traveling there would be more than you could handle in a weekend trip. This month, Saturn is more than 800 million miles away, but it’s around 180 million miles closer than it was last October.

It’s the second largest planet in our solar system, excluding its dynamic ring system, so that makes up for lack of proximity. It’s 75,000 times in diameter, and nearly ten times that of the Earth. Saturn’s ring system tacks on an additional 100,000 miles in diameter.

Speaking of which, that ring system on the planet makes Saturn one of the crown jewels of our solar system and this year is the first time in a couple years we can really see the rings again. They’ve been in hiding because they’ve been more or less on edge from our viewpoint on Earth.

While Saturn’s ring system is so vast in width, it’s only about 50 feet thick and so every 14 years it pretty much disappears. Saturn’s rings were exactly on edge from our view in late 2009. Last year, the rings began to widen a little bit, but now they’ve widened over 8 degrees from edge on. In the next several years we’ll see them even better as it approaches its maximum angle from edge on in 2017.

The most common accepted theory of the origin of Saturn’s rings is they were created about 100 million years ago when a passing moon or water-laced comet got a little too close.

These bits range in size from dust particles to school bus-size boulders spread out in their own individual orbits in nearly the same plane around Saturn. The ring system is so bright because ice covers the debris and that really reflects the sun’s light.

Saturn, just like its larger neighbor, Jupiter, has many moons and some of these moons act as gravitational “shepherd” moons that help keep Saturn’s ring system intact.

Titan has a heavy methane atmosphere and even has methane lakes. The Cassini spacecraft has been orbiting Saturn for years and has collected all kinds of data and photographs and has even photographed sunlight reflecting on one of the giant methane lakes. In 2005, a probed launched from the Cassini spacecraft even landed on Titan.

As fascinating as Titan is, the small moon Enceladus has really grabbed some astronomical headlines as the Cassini has photographed water plumes gushing from cracks in the moon’s surface. Wherever there’s liquid water there’s always at least a small chance of some kind of life. Stay tuned, there’s bound to be more about this possibility in years to come.

Just as it is with the ring system, just about any telescope will show you at least some of Saturn’s moons that resemble tiny little stars swarming Saturn, with Titan being decidedly brighter than the rest. They change their positions from night to night as they obediently orbit the planet.

It’s best to wait until after 10:30 or 11 p.m. to view Saturn so it can rise high enough so you don’t have to view through as much of Earth’s blurring atmosphere. Also, make sure you put your telescope out along with all the eyepieces for at least a half-hour before you start viewing so the optics can adapt to outside temperatures.

When you view Saturn through a telescope, try to look continually at it through the eyepiece for 10 to 15 minutes. The longer you look, the more detail you’ll see.

Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, “Pennsylvania Starwatch”, available at bookstores and at his website, www.lynchandthestars.com