Saturn is now rising in the evening and is well placed for observing for the next few months.

On 11th February 2007, Saturn will be opposite the Sun in relation to Earth. That means that from our planet, Saturn will rise as the Sun sets, reaching its highest point in the southern sky at midnight and setting as the Sun rises.

Saturn takes 29.42 years to orbit the Sun. Its path is not quite circular, and it was on 26th July 2003 that Saturn reached its closest point to the Sun on that orbit, called perihelion. The ringed planet was then 748.3 million miles (1.2 billion kilometers) from Earth.

And what's even more interesting is that Saturn's rings are now flattening. Below is a video of how Saturn's rings tilt over time. You can see Saturn get closer and farther away on every orbit of the Earth around the sun, but you can also see how the rings tilt over a 30 year period.

Saturn from 2000 to 2035 

As Saturn approaches opposition it will gradually get brighter until it reaches maximum brightness at opposition. With a simple sky map, Saturn is easy to find. It is currently in the constellation of Leo, the Lion.

Saturn is the telescopic showpiece of the night sky, thanks to its great ring system in all it's elegance. In small telescopes, the rings surprise even veteran observers with their stunning beauty. Certainly they will delight anyone this winter who might receive a telescope as a holiday gift. Any telescope magnifying more than 30x will show them. Even the most inexpensive off-the-shelf telescopes should do the job. Click here for details on choosing your telescope.

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) was the first to view the rings, in 1610. Although what he saw through his crude telescope left him completely baffled, as Saturn appeared to him not to have rings but rather two smaller bodies flanking it, one on either side. He couldn’t make them out clearly and thought that Saturn was a triple body, two small orbs attached to a large one.Later, when the rings turned edgewise to Earth and the two companions disappeared, Galileo invoked an ancient myth when he wrote, "Has Saturn swallowed his children?" Galileo lamented that his mind was too weak to comprehend this strange phenomenon.

Actually, it was his telescope that was too weak; a better one would have revealed Saturn’s companions as rings. It was not until a young Dutch mathematician, Christian Huygens (1629-1695) utilized a much better telescope, and on March 25, 1655 saw the rings for what they really were.

In mythology, Saturn closely resembled the Greek god Cronus, but he’s more usually recognized as the Roman god of agriculture. The name is related to both the noun satus (seed corn) and the verb serere (to sow). But why would the planet Saturn be linked to agriculture? Perhaps a clue can be found from the ancient Assyrians who referred to Saturn as lubadsagush, which translated, meant "oldest of the old sheep."

Possibly this name was applied because Saturn seems to move so very slowly among the stars, compared to nearer planets that shift their seasonal positions in the sky more quickly. It may have also reminded sky watchers of the slow pace of plowing oxen or cattle.

Closer views of Saturn can viewed at NASA's Cassini spacecraft website.