Saturn's 29.5-year orbit around the Sun will carry it to its furthest point to the Sun – its aphelion – at a distance of 10.07 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 aphelion it will be visible in the dawn sky, rising at 04:44 (PDT) – 1 hour and 59 minutes before the Sun – and reaching an altitude of 14° above the south-eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 06:13.
A chart of the path of Saturn across the sky in 2136 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.
The position of Saturn at the moment it passes aphelion will be:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| Saturn | 18h28m00s | 22°30'S | Sagittarius | 0.4 | 15.3" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
The sky on 14 Jul 2026
| The sky on 14 July 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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2% 1 day old |
All times shown in PDT.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE440 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
| 30 Aug 2135 | – Saturn ends retrograde motion |
| 21 Apr 2136 | – Saturn enters retrograde motion |
| 01 Jul 2136 | – Saturn at opposition |
| 09 Sep 2136 | – Saturn ends retrograde motion |
Image credit
© NASA/Cassini