2024, August 5-10:  Saturn’s Evening Appearance

August 5-10, 2024:  Saturn appears during the early evening hours during early-to-mid-August. The planet’s ring plane crossing occurs next year.

Saturn through the Hubble Space Telescope
Photo Caption – A Hubble View of Saturn (NASA)

by Jeffrey L. Hunt

Saturn Evening Sky

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Saturn, the most-distant planet that is easily visible to the unaided eye, enters the evening sky earlier each night.

On the 10th, Saturn rises 74 minutes after the sun, appearing two to three minutes earlier each night.  By two hours after nightfall, it is nearly 10° up in the east-southeast. Less than halfway up in the sky, it is in the south, five hours before sunrise.  During morning twilight, Saturn is over 30° above the southwest horizon.

Opposition Approaches

The planet nears opposition, when Earth passes between a more-distant solar system body and the sun. This year’s opposition occurs on September 7th, when the planet rises in the eastern sky at sunset, appears in the southern sky near midnight, and sets in the western sky at sunrise.  The planet is closest to Earth and shines brightest in the sky.

Ring Presentation

Through a telescope, the rings are easy to spot, along with up to eight of its largest satellites.  Titan, the second largest moon in the solar system, appears as an orange star to the ring’s eastern edge. Its globe is visible with high telescopic powers.

Saturn's orbit
Chart caption – Saturn moves through its orbit.

Saturn revolves around the sun every 29.5 years.  Like Earth, it is tilted with respect to its orbital plane.  With a tilt of 26.7°, earthbound telescopes see changing views of the planet and the ring system, while the planet maintains this angle.

Currently, the rings are tilted less than 3°, nearly edge on, like looking at the edge of a plate, rather than more from the top.

Saturn's Rings
Photo Caption – Looming like a giant flying saucer in our outer solar system, Saturn puts on a show as the planet and its magnificent ring system nod majestically over the course of its 29-year journey around the Sun. These Hubble Space Telescope images, captured from 1996 to 2000, show Saturn’s rings open up from just past edge-on to nearly fully open as it moves from autumn towards winter in its Northern Hemisphere. (NASA photo)

Since 2009, the planet has presented the northern hemisphere toward Earth, along with a view of the ring’s northside. During March 2025, sky watchers view the rings edge on.  During the next 14 years, the planet’s southern hemisphere and rings’ southern side are easily visible, followed by another ring plane crossing in 2039. Then another long spell occurs when the northern hemisphere is presented to Earth again.

Ring Parts

A closeup of Saturn's rings from the Cassini spacecraft.
Photo Caption – A closeup of Saturn’s rings from the Cassini spacecraft (NASA photo).

At least seven sections of the ring have been identified. Made of fragments of ices, the rings vary in brightness.  The brightest section, known as the B Ring, was the first observed and likely appear in Galileo’s drawings of the planet, although he did not identify them as rings.  The A Ring is outermost and separated from the B Ring by the Cassini Division, a gap in the ring set. The C (or Crepe) Ring is the dimmest of the three and closest to Saturn, often hidden by the glare from the B Ring and the planet’s clouds. Not visible through sky watchers’ telescopes, the E Ring was first observed in 1966.  The remaining three rings were first observed by spacecraft during close-up views during 1979 and 1980.

Saturn, Ring-Plane Crossing
Photo Caption – In one of nature’s most dramatic examples of “now-you see-them, now-you-don’t,” NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured Saturn on May 22, 1995 as the planet’s magnificent ring system turned edge-on. This ring-plane crossing occurs approximately every 15 years when the Earth passes through Saturn’s ring plane. (NASA photo)

At the ring plane crossing, the rings are seen edge on and may seem to disappear. More of the planet’s moons are visible through the world’s largest telescopes.  The planet has about 150 satellites, although most are small and beyond the views of backyard telescopes.  One could argue that the individual bodies in the rings are moons, although to be classified as a Saturnian satellite, the object’s orbit is calculated so it can be tracked, a difficult task for small fragments.

Saturn’s Retrograde

Saturn Retrogrades
Chart Caption – 2024, June 30: Saturn appears to move westward against the stars until November 15th.

As Earth overtakes Saturn, the Ringed Wonder retrogrades in front of a dim Aquarius’ starfield.  Normally, the planets appear to move eastward compared to the starry background.  When Earth overtakes them, the line of sight shifts westward and the planet seems to move     backwards against the starfield.

Saturn retrogrades, 2024
Chart Caption – 2024: Saturn retrogrades through a single binocular field of view in front of Aquarius during 2024.

Use a binocular to monitor Saturn’s westward progress through November, when the line of sight shifts eastward again.  The entire retrograde, that began a month ago, appears in a single binocular field of view.

Find an opportunity to see Saturn through a telescope at a public sky watching night at a local planetarium or with a local astronomy club.

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