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Look up! Saturn shines bright, shows off rings as it reaches opposition. - Space.com
Aug 01, 2021 1 min, 20 secs

This year Saturn's northern hemisphere will be tilted in our direction at a slant that allows for a nice look at Saturn's rings.

Saturn reaches this brightest point at about 2 a.m.

This year, Saturn's northern hemisphere will be tilted in our direction at a slant that allows for a nice look at Saturn's rings inclined at an angle of 18 degrees with respect to Earth, according to the website In-The-sky.org.

Viewers may also get to see Titan, Saturn's largest moon.

"Through a small telescope, Titan is actually pretty easy," astronomer Phil Plait told NPR.

"If you take a look, you might see a little star right next to Saturn.

Carlos Blanco, a particle physicist at Princeton University and an avid skywatcher, told Space.com that he recommends viewing Saturn with a telescope that offers a narrow field of view and high magnification. .

Don't worry if you can't locate a telescope in time, because Saturn is one of the most distant objects that people can view in the sky with the naked eye.

As a general rule of thumb, Plait recommends finding the brightest point in the night sky (after Venus has set, that is — that planet is easy to recognize because it shines low in the sky after sunset or before sunrise)!

That bright point is Jupiter, he told NPR, and Saturn will be the next-brightest point in the sky, west of Jupiter. .

In this case, Saturn will climb high in the Northern Hemisphere's sky at night because it is opposite the sun, which is high in the sky on the daytime side. .

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