Look! Dubai residents capture Saturn from 1.2 billion km away during opposition

Dubai: Dubai residents turned their lenses to the ringed planet on Sunday night (October 4), capturing Saturn from about 1.2 billion kilometres away at the Saturn Opposition event held by the Dubai Astronomy Group (DAG).

At that distance, light takes roughly 67 minutes to travel from Saturn to Earth.

Khadijah Hasan Ahmed, Operations Manager at DAG, told Gulf News the event drew around 150 people, including several families.

The evening featured a lecture at the SEE Institute, Sustainable City, followed by a planetarium show and telescope observations. DAG shared photographs from the event.

Saturn opposition is the point in Saturn's orbit when Earth lies directly between the Sun and Saturn. The three bodies line up, so Saturn sits on the opposite side of the sky from the Sun. It rises around sunset, is highest in the sky around midnight, and sets around sunrise, so it is visible all night.

Khadijah said photographing Saturn through a telescope using a phone can be challenging because the setup is shaky, often resulting in blurry images.

“Astrophotographers, on the other hand, use a full setup of telescopes and cameras, then stack and edit the images to get the final picture,” she highlighted.

Arif Al Blooshi, a Dubai government employee and an amateur astrophotographer, said astrophotography is a passion he has pursued for around two years.

He said conditions during the event were challenging, with high humidity and unclear skies. He made two attempts to capture the image, about an hour apart, before getting the shot he was happy with.

Al Blooshi said he captured the image using a ZWO ASI662MC camera mounted on a Celestron 6SLT telescope with a TeSeek HM-17PE mount.

He recorded 6,643 frames at a resolution of 1,920 × 1,080 pixels, then selected the best 65 per cent and stacked them to bring out fine details of Saturn and its rings during opposition.

He said the result was better than the Saturn photograph he took in August, despite high humidity making conditions challenging on Sunday night.

"The photo I took yesterday is better than the August photo because I learned some new tricks," he said.

Al Blooshi's Instagram account also features photographs of the Moon, the Milky Way and Saturn, among other astrophotography work.

Hamzah Awan, who works with DAG, was also among those who captured the pictures of the ringed planet at the event.

Khadijah said dozens of other stargazers, young and old, also captured the ringed planet and learnt more about it.

Participants had a thrilling experience seeing Saturn through telescopes and taking pictures. Many loved the experience in the immersive room of the planetarium as well.

Dubai resident Divya said: “It was a very nice experience. We really enjoyed the event. The explanation about Saturn was very interesting and then seeing Saturn through telescope was amazing.”

Sherif, who came with family, said: “It was a really good experience for me and my family. We learned many new things about Saturn. The planetarium was also very nice.”

Another participant, Hani said: “My children enjoyed the telescope part very much and they were very excited to see Saturn.”

The event coincided with World Space Week, the UN-declared celebration observed from October 4 to 10 each year to recognise the contributions of space science and technology to the betterment of human life.

This year's theme is Rocket Revolution, which highlights the rapid transformation of space launch, from limited government programmes to reusable rockets, commercial providers, startups and university teams.