Where is Saturn tonight?

Saturn in 3D

Saturn lit by the Sun at this moment and seen from Earth’s direction, so its phase matches what a telescope shows. Drag to turn it. The time slider moves the light and the rotation.

Where to find Saturn among the stars

Two finder charts for today: a wide field to find the right part of the sky and a closer field with fainter stars. North is up and east on the left, as the sky looks to the naked eye. The dotted line marks its path over the coming weeks, one dot per week.

Stars: HYG Database. Constellation figures: Stellarium. Deep-sky objects: OpenNGC (Messier objects marked M).

Visibility over the next 12 months

Angle between Saturn and the Sun on the 15th of each month. The further from the Sun, the darker the sky around it. Colour shows whether it is in the evening or the morning sky.

Ephemeris for the next 15 days

Position at 0:00 UTC each day as seen from the centre of the Earth (apparent coordinates of date), calculated with Astronomy Engine.

Distance from Earth

Distance from Earth over the past and the coming year. The closest approach in this period: October 14, 2027, 1,246 million km.

Brightness

Visual magnitude over the same two years. Higher on the chart is brighter.

Coming up

• May 7, 2027Conjunction of Venus and Saturn
• Oct 17, 2027Saturn at opposition
• Feb 28, 2028Conjunction of Venus and Saturn

Facts

Moon count: NASA, page updated August 202

Source: NASA planetary fact sheet (Oct 12, 2026). Calculated with Astronomy Engine, an open-source library verified against the US Naval Observatory and NASA JPL. Data sources

Gravity compared: Saturn and Earth

Drop, jump and throw side by side: Saturn on one side, Earth or any other world on the other. Pick a world to compare, or open the full tool. Open the gravity tool

Latest NASA images of Saturn

The newest images about it in NASA’s Photojournal, updated daily. Open one for NASA’s full caption and the original file.

NASA news about Saturn

• Mar 25, 2026Webb Captures Saturn in Infrared
• Feb 25, 2026Listen to This Month’s ‘Planetary Parade’ With NASA’s Chandra
• Jan 9, 2026Flight Engineers Give NASA’s Dragonfly Lift
• Dec 17, 2025NASA Study Suggests Saturn’s Moon Titan May Not Have Global Ocean
• Nov 28, 2025Newly Found Organics in Enceladus’ Plumes

Headlines from NASA’s news feeds (in English), updated daily. Last checked October 13, 2026.

Discoveries and exploration

Key moments in the study of Saturn, each linked to its source.

1. July 1610Galileo Galilei sees Saturn's rings through a telescope but mistakes them for a 'triple planet'. Source
2. 1655Christiaan Huygens discovers Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Source
3. 1675Jean-Dominique Cassini discovers a gap between what are now called the A and B rings. Source
4. September 1, 1979Pioneer 11 becomes the first spacecraft to reach Saturn, discovering the F ring and a new moon. Source
5. 1980Voyager 1 flies by Saturn and reveals a ring system made of thousands of ringlets. Source
6. 1981Voyager 2 flies closer to Saturn, returning more detailed images and showing how thin some rings are. Source · Recent NASA photos
7. July 1, 2004NASA's Cassini becomes the first spacecraft to orbit Saturn. Source
8. January 14, 2005ESA's Huygens probe lands on Titan, the first soft landing on another planet's moon. Source
9. 2005Cassini discovers icy water particles and gas gushing from the surface of the moon Enceladus. Source
10. 2009NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope reveals a giant, low-density ring linked to the distant moon Phoebe. Source
11. September 15, 2017Cassini ends its 13-year orbital mission with a planned plunge into Saturn's atmosphere. Source

Checked against the linked NASA, ESA and NOAA pages on October 10, 2026.

How to use this page

Choose your place and a night at the top: tonight by default, or one of the dates under it. The tiles show when Saturn rises, is highest and sets, and the numbers that matter for that night. Below them you find where it is right now, the sky in 3D with Saturn marked, finder charts, the year ahead and the facts.

What the numbers mean

Rises and sets

When the top edge of the disc meets a flat horizon, with the bending of light by the air included, as in almanacs. A time on another day carries its date.

Highest

When it crosses the meridian, due south or due north, and its height above the horizon then.

Direction and height

The compass point and azimuth to face, counted from north through east, and the angle above the horizon. A fist at arm’s length covers about 10°.

Distance and apparent size

How far away it is from Earth’s centre at that moment and how wide it looks in the sky, in arcminutes (′) or arcseconds (″).

Magnitude

Brightness: the smaller the number, the brighter. About 6 is the faintest the eye sees under a dark sky.

How accurate it is

Positions and times come from Astronomy Engine. In our tests positions agree with NASA JPL’s Horizons to within one arcminute, and rise and set times of the Sun and the Moon to within two minutes. Times assume a flat horizon at your place, so hills and buildings change when you actually see it rise or set. Methodology

Frequently asked questions