Everyone talks about the beautiful rings of Saturn or the glistening crescent of Venus. But for my money, Jupiter's where it's at.

Brilliant Jupiter returns to the evening sky this week when it achieves opposition – that point where it lies directly opposite the sun in our sky and rises as the sun sets.

Opposition also means that it lies closest to Earth and appears larger and brighter than at any other time of the year. So Jupiter, which is always exciting to view through a small telescope, will be especially impressive over the next month or two.

So why do I enjoy watching Jupiter more than any other planet? Because it actually does something.

Here's a world that's 11 times the diameter of Earth, yet it rotates on its axis once every 10 hours or so. This means that its Earth-facing side changes completely in just five hours. With patience, a stargazer with a small telescope can easily watch its pastel cloud bands and great red spot spin around in just one full evening of viewing.

If that's not remarkable enough, consider this: Jupiter has in orbit around it 63 moons (at last count). What I enjoy most is keeping up with the antics of its four largest. These are known as the Galilean satellites – Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto – because it was the Italian astronomer Galileo who discovered them and their movements four centuries ago.

These moons do-si-do around the Jovian disk from night to night – sometimes vanishing behind Jupiter or even casting their shadows onto the giant planet's cloud tops – and provide endless entertainment for the backyard astronomer.

Much of the fun of watching these moons is knowing which is which. You can identify them by visiting shallowsky.com/jupiter.html, where you can type in the date and time and receive a graphic representation of their positions, along with that of the great red spot. To learn more about these incredible moons and their parent planet, check out nineplanets.org/jupiter.html.

Now that Jupiter is back in the early evening sky, why not set up your telescope or contact your local astronomy club to find out when they will be hosting their next star party so you can get a close-up look at the giant planet? Yes, sir, it's going to be a great summer of Jupiter-watching.

© Copley News Service