Saturn

Saturn is one of the most lovely sights seen through the telescope. I think seeing Saturn through a small scope for the first time has brought more people to astronomy than any other sight. You can easily see the rings with a 2in. refractor and those with larger scopes can see the various types of rings. Saturn has recently gone through a time when the rings were edge on and to all practical purposes disapeared. They are now visable again. Try to see if you can make out the different rings and the ring shadow on Saturn.

Because the planets are always moving, in relation to the stars around them, there is no way I can point you directly to them without providing monthlyor bi-monthly starmaps. Even so you can still find Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn due to there brightness. It will help to get a copy of Astronomy or Sky & Telescope magazine for the present month to know where, when, and if these planets are visible.
These magazines provide monthly sky charts showing the planets. A free software program called Home Planet can be very useful for finding Planets. It can be down loaded by following the above link.

---

Created: 5/30/00 Updated: 5/30/00