On these beautiful summer nights, take the time to be outside after sunset to see a stunning view of Saturn close to the crescent Moon. If you keep watching the pair over the coming fortnight, you’ll see the planets appear very close to each other on 18th January.
Use the above image as a guide to get you started. Astronomical images provided by SkySafari, a Simulation Curriculum Company, All rights reserved www.simulationcurriculum.com.
When to look: After sunset, 3rd and 4th January
Which direction to look: West
Something Interesting:
Saturn’s rings are enormous — great rings of dust, ice, and rock stretching almost 300,000km from the gas giant — but they’re also surprisingly thin at only about 10m in general. Because of a quirk of how the rings orbit Saturn’s equator, on a tilt with the planet, approximately every 13-15 years the rings appear to disappear because from our viewpoint on Earth we see them edge-on. Then, slowly but surely, over a course of months and years they open up for us to see the gaps between the rings and planet again.
On 23rd March 2025, we witnessed a ring plane crossing which is the moment Saturn’s rings appear edge on from Earth. The rings disappeared from view. Over the next 6-7 years, the rings will appear to open up so that we can see gaps between them and the planet. The Hubble Space Telescope captured some great images back in 1995.
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There’s always something interesting happening in the night sky and country WA is the best place to catch all the action!