BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Brad Klein reviews the week’s astronomical highlights with Bethlehem’s ‘Backyard Astronomy Guy,’ Marty McGuire.
This week, a reminder that tonight is a peak one for viewing the annual Perseid meteor shower.
It’s also becoming more favorable as the summer goes on for viewing the planets in the evening sky. McGuire said that one of his favorite objects in the night sky is the ringed planet, Saturn.
“It’s the first object I saw through my first telescope. And that’s what hooked me into astronomy," he said.
In order to see the rings of Saturn, you’ll need to move up a step from handheld binoculars to a small telescope. But if you do, you will find that Saturn looks different from month to month and year to year.
Because of the tilt of Saturn’s axis and its nearly 30-year orbit around the sun, its angle in relation to an Earth-bound observer is always changing.
Currently, the rings are seen ‘edge on’ from Earth, but in coming years the angle will grow greater, the planet will appear brighter, and the rings will be more visible as seen from Earth.
