Saturn (Bruce Rohrlach)

Contains: Solar system body or event

Saturn

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Saturn

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

This is Saturn 5 days before opposition on the 15th June, when Earth and Saturn are at the closest in their orbital paths around the sun. Saturn's opposition occurs every 378 days due to Saturn's leisurely orbit (once every 29.5 years) around the sun. Also, 15th June is the date when Saturn's rings are most inclined or tilted towards us, before slowly regressing till eventually the rings will be inclined edge on and define a near-invisible sliver from earths' perspective.

The rings are made of particles of ice microns to tens of metres in diameter, with the main rings (A, B and C) being less than 100m thick in most places. The F ring was discovered by the Pioneer imaging team in 1979. Features of the F ring change in the time frame of hours. The traditional view is that the F ring is held together by the shepherding moons Prometheus and Pandora, although now it is thought that only Prometheus contributes to this confinement. In detail (F ring just barely visible here) the F ring comprises a core ring and a spiral ring around it.

One theory is the rings are the remains of icy comets that were torn apart by Saturn's immense gravity, however the very minimal ring structure of dust around Jupiter (an even more massive planet) hints that the rings of Saturn are instead left-over from the primordial condensation and aggregation of Saturn.

What ever the explanation, she is beautiful and bright at this time near opposition - and directly overhead at local midnight.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
Promotions by Submitters When 3 distinct Submitters promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for Top Pick status. This requirement, in addition to anonymization of images and distribution to only a subset of them, prevents biases and ensures that the best images are selected.
Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

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PixInsight job	n/a
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