April will see Saturn in Devon's sky

Saturn will make an appearance Cin Devon’s sky in April – this image was taken by Simon Harding, ‘probably the best astrophotographer in Torbay’

With the move to British Summer Time on Sunday, March 27, there has been a welcome return to lighter evenings. But it is still possible to see some interesting objects in the night sky – you just have to wait a little longer before they become visible.

April will see the appearance of the planet Saturn in Devon’s sky. Throughout the month, Saturn is close to (and just a little brighter than) the bright star Spica, in the constellation of Virgo. At the beginning of the month, it rises in the east at about 8pm, and is not particularly high in the sky until midnight.

However, as the month goes by, it will become more prominent in the southern sky, and will be almost directly due south by 11pm at the end of April. A small telescope will show its beautiful ring system, and its largest moon Titan. (The photograph shown here was taken by Simon Harding, probably the best astrophotographer in Torbay.)

Saturn is another of the gas giants in the Solar System, and – like almost all the matter in the Universe – is made up almost entirely of the two lightest elements, hydrogen and helium. It takes just under 30 years to orbit once round the Sun. Its rings were first observed by Galileo about 400 years ago, although his telescope was not good enough for him to realise exactly what they were. This discovery would have to wait for the astronomer Christiaan Huygens, nearly 50 years later.

The most prominent constellation in the southern sky during April is Leo (the Lion), which is a little to the west of Saturn, and a little higher in the sky. Leo can be recognised by the stars that are in the shape of a back-to-front question mark, and are meant to represent the head of the lion. The bright blue-white star at the bottom of the question mark is Regulus, a young star (only a few hundred million years old) with a mass a little over three times that of our own Sun.

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