Saturn's 29.5-year orbit around the Sun will carry it to its closest point to the Sun – its perihelion – at a distance of 9.02 AU.
In practice, however, Saturn's orbit is very close to circular; its distance from the Sun only varies by about 11.4% between perihelion and aphelion. This means that the difference in the amount of heat and light it receives from the Sun between aphelion and perihelion is extremely small.
Finding Saturn
Saturn's distance from the Sun doesn't affect its appearance. From South El Monte, at the moment of perihelion it will be visible in the evening sky, becoming accessible around 17:17 (PDT), 11° above your eastern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then reach its highest point in the sky at 23:18, 78° above your southern horizon. It will continue to be observable until around 05:35, when it sinks below 8° above your western horizon.
A chart of the path of Saturn across the sky in 1973 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.
The position of Saturn at the moment it passes perihelion will be:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| Saturn | 06h04m10s | 22°23'N | Gemini | -0.5 | 20.7" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
The sky on 29 Sep 2025
| The sky on 29 September 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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48% 8 days old |
All times shown in PDT.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.
Related news
| 22 Dec 1973 | – Saturn at opposition |
| 27 Feb 1974 | – Saturn ends retrograde motion |
| 31 Oct 1974 | – Saturn enters retrograde motion |
| 06 Jan 1975 | – Saturn at opposition |
Image credit
© NASA/Cassini