Saturn's March show

Note from Papa to Andre: This is a way to give you all of the information any young skywatcher should need to understand what he sees in the night sky. I'll include a weather forecast with each post, some directions and some background on the subject.

Last week, I sent your Mom an email about looking for Saturn in the early evening sky to the east of you. In it I told you about the first astronomer to see the rings around the planet. Only his telescope was so primitive - he made it himself even grinding the glass lens - that his view of the distant planet (746 million miles from earth) was rather crude.

It was so crude that Galileo assumed they were jug handles. In fact, this picture was taken using a replica of what Galileo saw. We now know that they are rings. It was two years before he was able to find the planet again and he was astonished that the rings had disappeared. Do you know why?

The next time Galileo was able to see the planet the tilt, or angle the planet was pointed at the astronomer had changed and the rings where nothing more than a straight line across the planet.

It is too bad that the weather in Bend will not be good for looking at this event but you might be able to catch it in the morning on the western horizon - perhaps underneath the clouds or in between snow showers.

Here is some other stuff about Saturn that you may not have known. It has sixty moons and is really cold. Try and imagine 170 degrees below zero cold! It also takes twenty nine and half years to get around the sun. If you were born on Saturn, you would only be a couple of months old!

Next up: some stuff you can look forward to when the clouds go away.