Bakersfield Night Sky — October 3, 2026
Tonight Saturn is at opposition, appearing opposite the Sun in our sky. This happens as we pass by Saturn in our faster, inner orbit. This also marks the time when we are closest to Saturn for this year, so Saturn is at peak brightness. Saturn will be the brightest object in the east-southeast sky in the evening and it will be the only bright point you see below the Great Square of Pegasus in the east (see the star chart above).
Saturn’s rings are beginning to “open up” or orient themselves from being edge-on like they were in 2025 to being more easily visible. Saturn’s rotation axis, and therefore its equatorial plane in which the rings reside, is tilted almost 27 degrees with respect to its orbit around the sun. Also, Saturn’s orbit is tilted about 2.5 degrees with respect to Earth’s orbit. What this means is that our view of Saturn’s rings continuously changes, so every 13 to 15 years, we see the rings edge-on. Even though the main visible ring system extends from about 46,000 miles to a bit over 85,000 miles from Saturn’s center (so an expanse of about 39,000 miles from the inner edge to the outer edge), the rings are less than 300 feet thick. A scale model of the rings with the width equal to a single piece of regular paper would be a football field across! Right now, the rings are tipped about 7.5 degrees south from our vantage point on Earth. They’ll continue opening up until 2032.
Saturn’s rings are made of trillions of water ice particles ranging in size from a small grain of sand to the size of a mountain but, on average, they are about the size of your clenched fist. The water ice composition means they reflect sunlight very well, making them easy to see from Earth. The small size of the particles means the amount of reflection can change very dramatically when Saturn is at opposition. At opposition, the particles hide their own shadows and reflect the sunlight directly back towards us. Within about a day on either side of opposition, the backscattering of the sunlight to us is pronounced, so tonight and tomorrow night, Saturn is going to be at its brightest all year. Saturn will be at its highest point due south at shortly before 1 a.m.
Although Saturn is very bright, it is still dimmer than the inner two planets, Venus and Mercury, visible near each other low in the southwest shortly after sunset. However, Venus and Mercury are pretty close to the sun as seen from Earth, so their brilliant glows are washed out quite a bit with the evening twilight. Saturn’s glow will be against a black sky, so the contrast will be better. (Even better contrast will be if you can get away from the light pollution of the city lights!) Venus will be at inferior conjunction, in between us and the sun, on October 23-24. Mercury is still climbing up away from the sun, reaching its greatest eastern elongation (angular separation in the evening) on October 12. Then it’ll drop down close to the sun and be at inferior conjunction on November 4.
A bit after midnight, you’ll see Orion rising in the east. A waning crescent moon (lit up on the left side) will become visible by about 12:45 a.m., rising with Pollux on the left side of Gemini.
Early Monday morning, October 5, the moon and Mars will rise together in the east-southeast becoming visible by about 2 a.m. Mars will be to the upper right of the crescent moon. Using binoculars, you’ll see the moon skim the northern edge of the Beehive cluster at the heart of Cancer.
The following Tuesday morning, October 6, a very thin crescent moon will be right next to brilliant Jupiter, becoming visible in the east a little after 3 a.m.. Those on the east coast of the U.S. will see the moon occult or cover up Jupiter and then uncover Jupiter while the two are rising. By the time we see moonrise in the Pacific timezone, the whole occultation show will be over. Darn! However, the very thin crescent moon next to brilliant Jupiter will be a beautiful sight for us. The moon will be at new phase on October 10. In the early morning hours of October 11 and 12, use your binoculars to see Mars pass through the dim stars of the Beehive Cluster. We’ll begin to see a waxing crescent moon (lit up on the right side) in the west shortly after sunset starting at about October 12.
Tickets are still on sale for the October 15 showing of Moon Base at the William M Thomas Planetarium. As with all of our regular evening shows, the presentation will include a tour of the evening sky with our Chronos star projector. Always, clear dark skies there!
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Director of the William M Thomas Planetarium at Bakersfield College
Author of the award-winning website www.astronomynotes.com
