Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 50

OBSERVING

Celestial Calendar

Saturn at Its Best
Saturn is closest in May and June, with its rings tipped wide open.
As Jupiter sinks westward through the hours of the
night and through the weeks of late spring, Saturn
comes up in the southeast to lure your telescope away.
Saturn reaches opposition on the night of May 22nd:
about two weeks later than it did the previous year, as
always happens. Throughout May and June Saturn
remains essentially at its closest, biggest, and brightest
for 2015. Shining just above the head of Scorpius, Saturn
is fairly far south at declination -18°. (And it will be even
°
farther south until 2021.) So you'll want to stay out late
enough with your telescope for it to approach the sky's
meridian and shine as high as possible. It's nearly there
by 1 a.m. daylight-saving time on May 1st, 11 p.m. on
June 1st, and in late twilight by July 1st.
All this time, Saturn shines strikingly bright at magnitude 0.0 or +0.1. It far outshines Antares, magnitude
+1.0, twinkling some 10° to 13° below or lower left of it.
Saturn's equator appears about 18.5 arcseconds wide in
May and June, and the immense ring system spans 42″,
Saturn's rings
were tilted
22.0° from
our line of
sight when
Damian Peach
took this
extraordinarily
fine image on
April 27, 2014.
At that time,
Saturn's poles
still bumped
a little above
and below the
outer edges
of the A ring.
This year they
don't. South
is up in all
images.

quite a bit wider than Jupiter appears now.
And the rings are almost wide open! They're tilted
from our line of sight by a trace more than 24°. This is
the widest open we've seen the rings since 2005, which
is why Saturn looks unusually bright to the naked eye
this year. When the rings are edge on (as last happened
in 2009), Saturn glows no brighter than Antares.
This high ring tilt means we get fine looks not only at
the rings themselves, but at Saturn's equatorial latitudes, now completely exposed, and at the North Polar
Region, which is tipped both into Earthly view and into
Saturnian summer sunlight. (Saturn's equator is exactly
aligned with the rings.) A challenge for imagers under
the best conditions will be the Polar Hexagon, slightly
darker and perhaps a bit greener than the rest of the
North Polar Region. The finest amateur imaging can
show that the Hexagon is indeed six-sided rather that
round, even though this feature went undiscovered until
the Cassini Saturn orbiter sent back shots from close up.

SOUTH

C ring on globe

Direction of rotation
Cassini Division

Encke Gap

Rings

A

B

C

Equatorial Zone
North Equatorial Belt

North Polar Region

Shadow of globe on rings
NORTH

50

June 2015 sky & telescope



Sky and Telescope - June 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky and Telescope - June 2015

Contents
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - Cover1
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - Cover2
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 3
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - Contents
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 5
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - A
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - B
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 6
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 7
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 8
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - 9
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Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - Cover3
Sky and Telescope - June 2015 - Cover4
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