Saturn with its famous ring system is an impressive sight at high magnification, but a binocular can only show a few dents, bulges or „handles“ next to the planet disk – you need at least 35x magnification to reveal the nature of the ring system. A pair of binoculars lets you only discern if we are currently looking directly onto the edge of the rings, so that only the disk of the planet is visible, or if the Earth is far above or below the ring plane, so that we can watch them in full splendor.
Because of the low magnification of binoculars, we are in the same situation in which once Galileo was – you can recognize that something about Saturn is different compared to the other planets, but you can‘t see clearly what it is.
The views of Saturn change over the years, since the axis of the planet (and thus also the ring system in its equatorial plane) are fixed in space – exactly like the Earth‘s axis always points at the north star, Saturn and its rings are aligned to their own north star. Since the Earth and Saturn revolve at different speeds around the Sun, the Earth is sometimes above or below the plane of the rings and sometimes exactly in the same plane. If we are looking exactly at the edge of the ring system, they seem to disappear, as it is less than 6 miles (10 km) thick. Only very large telescopes might see the ring system at this time. Since the ring system contributes much to the brightness of the planet, Saturn will also appear darker in the sky. Conversely, Saturn and its rings are very striking when the Earth is far above or below the ring plane. Approximately every 15 years the Earth passes through the plane of the rings, including the years 2009 and 2025. In 1995, the annular passage coincided with Saturn’s opposition, and because of the complicated path of the planet in the sky (when we overtake it, it seems to move backwards for some time) the planetary ring system disappeared three times in succession – a rare spectacle.
Titan is Saturn‘s brightest moon and with up to 8.3m in principle within reach of binoculars, but hardly distinguishable from the stars it is not easy to spot when close to the bright planet.