OF BLUEBIRDS AND FOOLS

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And, astonishingly, the visible ring-system, over 170,000 miles across, is less than a few hundred yards wide ...and therefore vanishes from view in even the world's largest telescopes when it goes edgewise! Saturn's rings go edgewise for the first time since 1980 on the morning of May 22, 1995. Just to observe the before and after—"Now you see them ...now you don't!"—is exciting in itself. But the full story of what will happen as Saturn's rings go edgewise to the Earth three times and edgewise to the Sun once between now and February 11, 1996, is much more exciting and complex.

In future columns I will explain more about what is happening and what to look for. Right now, I should point out that Saturn can be found in April in relation to the much brighter planet Venus. Venus beams low in the east about 45 minutes before sunrise, outshining all other points of light in the sky. In the second week of April start looking for a much dimmer point of light well below Venus—this is Saturn. Each night Saturn gets closer in the sky to Venus, until finally on April 13, it lies very close, just below Venus. In the days and weeks that follow, Saturn moves farther and farther to the upper right of Venus. Keep following it into May.

If you have access to a telescope, early May could be the time when Saturn is high enough at dawn for you to get a steady image of it and get a last look at the rings—appearing as a needle-thin line of light dissecting the planet's yellow globe. How long after May 22 will Saturn appear "ringless"? We will pursue the answer to that fascinating question in our next column.

Before Buying a Telescope

Saturn will get dimmer than it has been for 15 years when the rings go edgewise, and the naked eye can appreciate that. But if you want the excitement of the nine-month ring show to be more than almost purely mental, you'll need a telescope to magnify the planet enough to see the rings (or the ringless globe of Saturn when the rings aren't detectable).

However, my initial advice to beginning amateur astronomers is: Don't get a telescope right away. Instead, I tell novices, go to your library and read up on astronomy. Do you like the subject as much as you initially thought (maybe more!)? Then, do some naked-eye observing, being sure to use books to learn how to identify at least the bright planets and brightest stars and constellations. Also, notice how you feel about being out in the dark and sometimes cold night. Do you feel that the sight of the moon, stars, and planets is worth a little chill or loss of sleep? Can you easily get to a safe observing site?

If you've passed the pretelescope test up to this point, there's still one step left before buying a telescope: binoculars. Binoculars are marvelously versatile and portable optical instruments that you may already have, perhaps for birding or sports events. If you don't have a pair of binoculars, you can buy a respectable pair for about thirty dollars, not the hundreds a good telescope will run you. Binoculars can show many thousands of extra stars, entire classes of heavenly objects too dim for the naked eye, and literally hundreds of features on the moon.

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