© NASA/Cassini

Saturn ends retrograde motion

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Outer Planets feed

Objects: Saturn
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Saturn will reach the end of its retrograde motion, ending its westward movement through the constellations and returning to more usual eastward motion instead. This reversal of direction is a phenomenon that all the solar system's outer planets periodically undergo, a few months after they pass 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.

1973–1974 apparition of Saturn

17 Oct 1973 – Saturn enters retrograde motion
23 Dec 1973 – Saturn at opposition
27 Feb 1974 – Saturn ends retrograde motion

Observing Saturn

Saturn leaves retrograde motion as its 1973–1974 apparition comes to an end, although it will remain visible for some weeks in the dusk sky.

Its celestial coordinates as it leaves retrograde motion will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Saturn 05h51m50s 22°33'N Orion -0.3 19.2"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

From Ashburn , it will be visible in the evening sky, becoming accessible around 19:26 (EDT), 68° above your south-eastern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then reach its highest point in the sky at 20:32, 73° above your southern horizon. It will continue to be observable until around 02:57, when it sinks below 9° above your western horizon.

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Over the following weeks, Saturn will reach its highest point in the sky four minutes earlier each night, gradually disappearing into evening twilight.

The sky on 29 Mar 2024

The sky on 29 March 2024
Sunrise
06:56
Sunset
19:30
Twilight ends
21:01
Twilight begins
05:25

19-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

82%

19 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:25 14:12 20:58
Venus 06:23 12:11 17:59
Moon 23:04 04:01 08:52
Mars 05:41 11:08 16:35
Jupiter 08:39 15:36 22:33
Saturn 06:03 11:39 17:15
All times shown in EDT.

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

27 Feb 1974  –  Saturn ends retrograde motion
31 Oct 1974  –  Saturn enters retrograde motion
06 Jan 1975  –  Saturn at opposition
14 Mar 1975  –  Saturn ends retrograde motion

Image credit

© NASA/Cassini

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Ashburn

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39.04°N
77.49°W
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