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Saturn returns to the evening sky

Saturn entered evening visibility this week, rising in the east just after 23:00 UTC. From a moderately dark site, the rings are immediately resolved in any telescope above 80mm aperture — and to the unaided eye, the planet is now an unmissable cream-coloured point in the constellation Aquarius.

A short list of what to look for when you find it in the eyepiece: the Cassini Division (the dark gap between the A and B rings); the shadow of the planet itself thrown across the rings on the side opposite the sun; and Titan, the great orange moon, often glowing about four ring-widths to one side.

We will publish a longer entry on the Saturn system next lunation — until then, take a notebook outside and try to sketch what you see. A pencil drawing teaches you more about a planet than a hundred photographs.

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