{"id":648843,"date":"2026-08-21T10:08:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T10:08:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/648843\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T10:08:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T10:08:16","slug":"the-sky-today-on-friday-august-21-titan-nears-saturn-as-dione-skims-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/648843\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on\u00a0Friday, August 21: Titan nears Saturn as Dione skims past"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tSaturn\u2019s moons are on the move: Dione skims behind the ringed world in an occultation as brighter Titan stands nearby.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1184\" height=\"724\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1787306896_738_Saturn-moons-08212026.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"A telescopic simulation of Saturn on August 21, 2026, at 5 A.M. EDT, showing the planet with its rings tilted at a shallow angle against a black background. Four labeled moons are visible: Titan as a large golden point in the upper left, and Dione, Tethys, and Rhea as smaller white points scattered to the left of the planet. A scale bar indicates 30 arcseconds.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tTitan is easy to spot near Saturn on August 21. Additionally, at 5 A.M. EDT, the 10th-magnitude moon Dione is preparing to just skim over the northern pole of the ringed planet. Observers in the western two-thirds of the U.S. will have the best views, as the sky will begin to grow light along the East Coast as Dione crosses north of Saturn. Only moons brighter than mid-10th magnitude are shown here. Credit: Stellarium\/Oleg Pluton\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-this-week-from-august-14-to-21-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>August 20: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-thursday-august-20-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dark, flat Plato<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">Turn your gaze southeast early this morning to find Saturn already some 30\u00b0 high, shining so brightly it\u2019s easy to pick out among the dim stars populating this region. You\u2019ll want a telescope \u2014 even a small one will do \u2014 to view the planet\u2019s lovely ring system, which stretches some 43\u201d from end to end. That\u2019s more than twice the planet\u2019s apparent diameter, which is currently 19\u201d. The rings are showing off their southern side, and the southern pole of Saturn is visible as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Now look just northeast of the planet \u2014 you should be able to identify Titan, Saturn\u2019s largest moon, glowing at mid-8th magnitude less than an arcminute away. If you come back tomorrow morning, this moon will have slid westward in its orbit, standing northwest of Saturn the morning of the 22nd. It takes about 16 days in total for Titan to complete a full orbit.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If you have dark skies and a larger scope, you may also spot 10th-magnitude Rhea, Dione, and Tethys near Saturn as well. Around 2 A.M. EDT, all three are east of the planet, with Dione to the northeast (but closer in than Titan), Tethys to the east, and Rhea to the southeast. Over the next few hours, you can watch Dione moving west at a much faster pace than Titan \u2014 observers in the Central time zone and areas west of this will see Dione skim just north of Saturn\u2019s pole around 5 A.M. CDT.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Sunrise:<\/strong> 6:17 A.M.<br \/><strong>Sunset:<\/strong> 7:48 P.M.<br \/><strong>Moonrise:<\/strong> 3:52 P.M.<br \/><strong>Moonset:<\/strong> \u2014<br \/><strong>Moon Phase:<\/strong> Waxing gibbous (69%)<br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Alison Klesman<\/strong>\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List Saturn\u2019s moons are on the move: Dione skims behind the ringed world in an&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,2209,133,75779],"class_list":["post-648843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117132953098222931","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=648843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/648843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/648844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=648843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=648843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=648843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}