Saturn at opposition, coming up August 14

View at EarthSky Community Photos. | Sona Shahani Shukla in New Delhi captured these images of Saturn in 2020, 2021 and 2022 and wrote: “Here’s a compilation of images from each year showing the tilt of Saturn’s rings from our perspective.” Thank you, Sona! It’s true. Saturn’s rings tilt nearly 27 degrees relative to the ecliptic, or Earth-sun plane. So that’s the widest possible tilt we see. But we see them at various tilts on about a 15-year cycle.

July 2022 is a good month to start watching for Saturn. Its 2022 opposition will come on August 14, when Earth will sweep between the sun and Saturn, placing the ringed planet opposite the sun in our sky.

Saturn at opposition in August 2022

When and where to watch in 2022: By early July 2022, Saturn is rising in the east in mid-to-late evening. By the time of its August 14 opposition, Saturn will be rising in the east at sunset and will be visible all night. Afterwards, for the rest of 2022, Saturn will be visible in the evening. It’ll continue shifting west, remaining visible in the evening sky through January 2023.
Date and time of opposition: 17 UTC on August 14, 2022.Con
Brightness at opposition: Around opposition, the ringed planet shines at its brightest for 2022, at magnitude 0.3
Distance from Earth at opposition: Around opposition, Saturn is at its least distance from Earth for 2022, at 73 light-minutes.
Constellation at opposition: Capricornus the Sea Goat.
Size through a telescope: Saturn is best through a telescope around opposition. At its largest, Saturn will appear 18.76 arcseconds across.
Note: Opposition marks the middle of the best time of year to see an outer planet. You can’t see Saturn’s rings through binoculars. But, around its August 2022 opposition, Saturn appears through binoculars as a bright oval-shaped disk.

Opposition happens when Earth flies between an outer planet, like Saturn, and the sun. Illustration via Heavens-Above.

For precise sun and Saturn rising times at your location:

Old Farmer’s Almanac (U.S. and Canada)
timeanddate.com (worldwide).
Stellarium-Web (online planetarium program)

A comparison of the apparent size of Saturn at opposition (next August 14, 2022) and when it is most distant from the Earth at solar conjunction (next on February 16, 2023). Image via Dominic Ford’s In-the-Sky.org.

How often is Saturn at opposition?

Saturn comes to opposition nearly every year. A year is the length of time Earth takes to travel once around the sun relative to Saturn. Saturn’s orbit around the sun takes 29.4 Earth-years. So each year we have to travel slightly farther in orbit to catch up to, and pass, Saturn again. Thus Saturn oppositions are roughly 378 days apart. And so Saturn’s opposition comes about two weeks later each year.

2021 Saturn opposition – August 2
2022 Saturn opposition – August 14
2023 Saturn opposition – August 27
2024 Saturn opposition – September 8
2025 Saturn opposition – September 25

Contrasting the size of Saturn and its rings with our planet Earth. Image via Hubble Heritage.

Saturn events in 2022 and early 2023

June 4, 2022: Saturn begins retrograde motion
August 14, 2022: Saturn at opposition
October 23, 2022: Saturn ends retrograde motion
February 16, 2023: Saturn in conjunction with the sun (most behind the sun as seen from Earth).

Saturn and its rings as seen by Hubble on September 12, 2021. Image via ESA/ NASA/ Amy Simon (NASA-GSFC)/ Michael H. Wong (UC Berkeley)/ Alyssa Pagan (STScI)/ Hubblesite.

Saturn is a world of rings and moons

Saturn is the 6th planet outward from the sun. People in ancient times saw it as a golden “star” that moved among the fixed stars: a wanderer. It wasn’t until astronomers began using telescopes in the 17th century that they saw its rings.

In the 1950s, astronomers spoke of Saturn as having three rings. But spacecraft in the latter part of the 20th century showed vastly more detail. They revealed that Saturn actually has thousands of thin, finely detailed rings made of tiny chunks of ice. Saturn also has at least 82 moons with confirmed orbits. Only 53 of Saturn’s moons have names, and only 13 have diameters larger than 30 miles (about 50 kilometers).

Saturn is truly a wondrous world of rings and moons. It’s everyone’s favorite celestial object to gaze at through a small telescope, so if there’s a public astronomy night near you this month … go!

The Cassini spacecraft, which orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017, obtained almost unbelievably stunning images of the planet. Here, a moon, Rhea, occults – or passes in front of – a crescent Saturn. Image via Cassini Imaging Team/ SSI/ ESA/ NASA-JPL. See more images of Saturn from Cassini.

Bottom line: July 2022 is a good month to start watching for Saturn. Its 2022 opposition will come on August 14, when Earth will sweep between the sun and Saturn, placing the ringed planet opposite the sun in our sky. Saturn will be in an excellent place to observe throughout July, August, September and October 2022.

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