Watch the moon meet up with Saturn in the pre-dawn sky tonight

Home News Skywatching An illustration of the morning sky on March 19 revealing the combination of the moon and Saturn. (Image credit: Starry Night Education) The moon meets Saturn on Sunday (March 19) with the 2 heavenly bodies sharing the exact same ideal ascension, a plan called a combination. The thin sliver of the moon, which will remain in its subsiding crescent stage, will pass south of Saturn by 3 ° 35′ according to In the Sky. (opens in brand-new tab) Both the moon and the gas giant, which is the second-largest world in the planetary system will remain in the constellation of Aquarius throughout the combination. The moon will have a magnitude of -9.8, with the minus prefix showing an especially intense things in the sky, while Saturn will have a magnitude of 0.8. The very best time to see the combination will be around 6:30 a.m. regional time, and skywatchers will require an unblocked horizon and a clear sky to construct the set in the early morning golden. Simply beware to turn your optics far from the horizon prior to the sun increases! Related: Night sky, March 2023: What you can see tonight [maps]

Throughout the combination, the moon and Saturn will still be too extensively separated to be seen together with a telescope. Skywatchers might identify the combination with field glasses. According to In the Sky (opens in brand-new tab), the combination will show up from New York City at around 6:02 a.m. EDT (1002 GMT), simply after the moon and Saturn have actually increased over the horizon. The combination will stay noticeable till around 4:42 p.m. EDT (2042 GMT) when the moon sets. This implies skywatchers intending to see the combination must take preventative measures connected with daytime astronomy, especially not looking straight at the sun either through optics or with the unaided eye. While the moon controls Saturn in the night sky in regards to size, with an angular size of 32’55″7 compared to Saturn’s angular size of 15″5 throughout the combination, the circumstance might barely be more various out in the real planetary system. Saturn is so big, with a size of over 72,000 miles (116,000 km), that NASA states it would take 9 Earths to call it at the gas giant’s equator. This implies that if Earth was as big as a nickel, Saturn would be the size of a beach ball. The moon’s size, on the other hand, is simply 2,159 miles (3,475 kilometers) making it a quarter of the size of Earth. That indicates it would take 36 moons to call Saturn. Obviously, Saturn is no complete stranger to moons, as it has at least 83 of its own! The gas giant has another 20 moons waiting to be validated. The biggest of Saturn’s moons is the huge moon Titan, bigger than the world Mercury. The biggest of a minimum of 150 recognized planetary system moons, Titan overshadows Earth’s moon with a size of around 3,200 miles (5,150 kilometers). Saturn’s moon Titan looks a bit like Earth, however is, in truth, extremely various. (Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)This measurement may appear a bit questionable thinking about Jupiter’s moon Ganymede in fact has a size of around 3,270 miles (5,270 kilometers). Titan beats Ganymede as the biggest moon since this measurement just consider its strong body and does not include its environment which goes for numerous miles! If you’re wishing to capture a take a look at the moon or Saturn throughout the combination our guide for the very best telescopes will assist. If you wish to capture the 2 celestial things together our guide to the very best field glasses is a terrific location to begin. If you’re aiming to snap pictures of the night sky in basic, have a look at our guide on how to photo the moon, along with our finest cams for astrophotography and finest lenses for astrophotography. Editor’s Note: If you snap Saturn or the moon and wish to share your picture(s) with Space.com’s readers, send your image(s), remarks, and your name and place to spacephotos@space.com. Follow us @Spacedotcom (opens in brand-new tab), or on Facebook (opens in brand-new tab) and Instagram (opens in brand-new tab). Join our Space Forums to keep talking area on the most recent objectives, night sky and more! And if you have a news suggestion, correction or remark, let us understand at: community@space.com. Robert Lea is a science reporter in the U.K. whose short articles have actually been released in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He likewise discusses science interaction for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor’s degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University. Follow him on Twitter @sciencef1rst.