Saturn will enter retrograde motion, halting its usual eastward movement through the constellations, and turning to move westwards instead. This reversal of direction is a phenomenon that all the solar system's outer planets periodically undergo, a few months before they reach opposition.
The retrograde motion is caused by the Earth's own motion around the Sun. As the Earth circles the Sun, our perspective changes, and this causes the apparent positions of objects to move from side-to-side in the sky with a one-year period. This nodding motion is super-imposed on the planet's long-term eastward motion through the constellations.
The diagram below illustrates this. The grey dashed arrow shows the Earth's sight-line to the planet, and the diagram on the right shows the planet's apparently movement across the sky as seen from the Earth:
The retrograde motion of a planet in the outer solar system.
Not drawn to scale.
1981 apparition of Saturn
| 18 Jan 1981 | – | Saturn enters retrograde motion |
| 26 Mar 1981 | – | Saturn at opposition |
| 04 Jun 1981 | – | Saturn ends retrograde motion |
Observing Saturn
Saturn enters retrograde motion as its 1981 apparition gets underway, although it has already been visible for some weeks in the pre-dawn sky.
Its celestial coordinates as it enters retrograde motion will be:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| Saturn | 12h40m40s | 1°44'S | Virgo | 0.5 | 18.1" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
From Cambridge , it will be visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 23:40, when it reaches an altitude of 10° above your eastern horizon. It will then reach its highest point in the sky at 04:34, 45° above your southern horizon. It will be lost to dawn twilight around 06:32, 38° above your south-western horizon.
Over the following weeks, Saturn will reach its highest point in the sky four minutes earlier each night, gradually becoming visible in the evening sky, as well as the pre-dawn sky, as it approaches opposition.
The sky on 22 Nov 2024
| The sky on 22 November 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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50% 21 days old |
All times shown in EST.
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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
| 18 Jan 1981 | – Saturn enters retrograde motion |
| 26 Mar 1981 | – Saturn at opposition |
| 04 Jun 1981 | – Saturn ends retrograde motion |
| 30 Jan 1982 | – Saturn enters retrograde motion |
Image credit
© NASA/Cassini