Actual Astronomy - Saturn At Opposition

Hosted by Chris Beckett & Shane Ludtke, two amateur astronomers in Saskatchewan.

Welcome to Episode 248 of the Actual Astronomy Podcast  a short episode on Saturn ‘s Opposition.  

 

Opposition?

• - On August 14th Saturn will be at opposition.
• - What is opposition?
• - When a planet or other body is opposite the sun in the sky.
• - SO it rises at sunset and sets at sunrise.
• - Typically this marks the time when most people will begin looking at the planet since after this date it is more and more into the evening sky when people are more likely to be observing instead of having to wait past midnight for it to get high enough to observe. 
• - Also this year before now in the northern hemisphere you would be staying up pretty late.
•  
• Seeing Saturn to the first time seems fake :) A couple weeks ago I was showing the public Saturn through my telescope when I had it set up in GNP.
•  
• How to observe:

• - Do you need a telescope just to ID Saturn? Nope, you can see it with just your eye. A telescope is needed to see the rings.
• - What will binoculars show? Maybe a football shape and Titan from a dark sky.

• - What will it look like in binoculars?
• - You’ll need at least ~10x to see it as an oval / football shape and for those with 15x you’ll start to get a hint of the rings but these are best seen in telescopes.
• - Binoculars can help you track it’s retrograde motion as it moves a little to the West each night and panning several degrees over the course of the month.
•  
• Telescopes:

• - Any telescope with powers greater than 30x will begin to show the rings well.
• - The rings are currently angled about 13-degrees towards earth making them easily visible in any telescope.
•  
• The Seelinger Effect:
• On the morning/evening of opposition, it may be possible to see a notable increase in the brightening of Saturn's rings when compared to the planet's disk. This is called the Seeliger Effect.
• This happens because Saturn's rings are made of ice particles which, At around the time of opposition, are illuminated from the same direction we are viewing them from so we see none in shadow.
•  
• Through my scope I’ve seen some of the ring divisions, like the main Cassini Division. The main rings we see are the A,B and C rings and you can look for the faint D ring closer in to the planet. Inside the Cassini division we have the Huygens, Kuiper, and Barnard Gap, out towards the edge of the rings we have the Keeler gap. All these sort of phenomena are easiest seen in telescopes around 10 inches or so in size.
•  
• Moons: 
• Sky at Night had a nice map.

• - Titan
•  
• Thanks Shane and to everyone for listening, be sure to subscribe and we always appreciate the Patreon support. You can reach us at  [email protected].

 

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