Saturn at opposition

Opposition is the point in a planet's orbit where the Earth is in a direct line between the sun and the planet. Usually this means that the planet is at it's closest to the Earth and the brightest.
Unfortunately this apparition of Saturn occurs when Saturn has a very low altitude when viewed from the UK. This means that the light from the planet has to pass through a lot of atmosphere and can be quite distorted so some fine detail can be lost when viewing.

This shot from last night shows some colour and the Cassini division  can be seen in the rings. It is noted that the edge of the rings are visible behind the body of the planet. This changes as the position of Earth and Saturn change. At present the rings are "wide open", in 11 years the rings will barely be visible as they will be viewed edge on from the Earth.

Imaged from Burnham on Crouch in Essex using a Celestron 8" Evolution and an Altair Astro GPcam v1. Captured using sharpcap, stacked in Autostakkert 2, processed in Registax and Gimp.