Home > Ephemeris Program, Planets, Saturn > 04/29/2013 – Ephemeris – Saturn at opposition from the sun

04/29/2013 – Ephemeris – Saturn at opposition from the sun

April 29, 2013

Ephemeris for Monday, April 29th.  The sun rises at 6:35.  It’ll be up for 14 hours and 9 minutes, setting at 8:45.   The moon, 3 days before last quarter, will rise at 1:11 tomorrow morning.

This past weekend Saturn was in opposition to the sun.  That simply means the earth was more or less directly between the sun and Saturn.  That means Saturn’s at its closest to us at 821 million miles.  The Cassini spacecraft that’s still orbiting Saturn, when it sends pictures and data back to earth still takes about an hour and a quarter for the signals to get here.  Shadows of the rings on the planet and planet on the rings are minimal.  Saturn and the earth have some coincidental properties as seen from the sun.  Saturn is 9.5 times the earth’s distance from the sun.  And Saturn is about 9.5 times the diameter as the earth, so from the sun both the earth and Saturn would appear to be the same apparent size. Cool huh?

Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Saturn rising in the evening in May, 2013

Saturn rising in the evening in May, 2013 as rendered by Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts)

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