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ANOTHER clear night with the stars shining bright. The thin crescent moon had set leading the way for Jupiter and Mars. A few degrees further behind on the ecliptic was Saturn as a bright orange colour against the surrounding stars of the constellation Orpiuchus. It passed its closest point with Earth just a few days ago.
Taken using the 500mm lens, the ring of Saturn is obviously encircling the planet about 1.4 billion kilometres away. The planet has a diameter of around 120,000 kilometres, about ten times that of Earth. The ring has a diameter of 280,000 kilometres. Fortunately there is quite an angle to the ring in this part of its 29 year orbit, reaching its greatest angle in about a year's time. About eight years ago the ten metre thick ring was almost invisible.
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