Today is Saturday, the weekday of old god Saturn; tomorrow is the day of Saturn’s opposition, the middle of the best time to observe the planet. Opposition means it is 180° around the sky from the Sun, therefore approximately nearest to us (8.66 astronomical units or Sun-Earth distances), largest (19 seconds wide across its equator), and brightest (magnitude 0.6).
Though tomorrow is the date into which the opposition falls – 4h by Universal Time – today’s sunset is the nearest to that time. Here is the scene as Saturn comes up into view on the east an hour after the Sun has gone down in the west.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations. Saturn is exaggerated 150 times in size, to show the current attitude of its rings.
And here is part of one of the illustrations in the “Saturn” pages of Astronomical Calendar 2024,
where there is much more, including a diagram of the positons of Saturn’s satellites at this time.
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ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor.
One way: right-click, and choose ”View image” or ”Open image in new tab”, then enlarge. Or choose ”Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after publishing it. If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version. Or, if you click ‘Refresh’ or press function key 5, you’ll see the latest version.