Meanwhile, Saturn remains well south of the ecliptic but is also making its way east against the stars. In our image we see Saturn just above a grouping of dim stars; by comparing its position now to that of January 1, 2025 we can see that it has moved perceptibly because on the earlier image it was below that group.
This part of the sky does not offer any bright stars to dazzle us but there are some well-known and eye-catching aster- isms in the area; the Water Jar and the Circlet are always fun to trace out!
Those asterisms are the guide to two of the more interesting objects accessible to small telescopes in this region; the first is TX Piscium, a carbon star that appears deep orange in binoculars or a small scope. It is one of the brightest such objects in the sky and definitely worth a look. The other notable object is Zeta Aquarii, a close double star in the center of the Water Jar asterism on the right side of the image. High power will be required to resolve it!
Venus is really moving in on Saturn now ~ they are only separated by 3°13'29" and will close dramatically in the next three days to be closest on the 18th. Venus is magnitude -4.47 while Saturn is +1.09 this evening. Neptune is quite faint at magnitude +7.92, barely detectable on the image. Unannotated image.