I'm sorry if I'm not familiar with your area of expertise, that's why I'm asking the question, because I want to understand. There are lots of stars that are brighter than Saturn, even at its brightest. I don't know if I'd know if a bright point of light is Sirius or Vega or Saturn or what (I could probably at least tell if it's Polaris). I was just trying to find out how you go from a night sky to pointing at Saturn, or Mars, or Jupiter, unless you have a map showing you where it would be on a given night.
Also, don't planets sometimes seem to move in non-intuitive paths, like Mars performing retrograde motion when viewed from Earth? If you were viewing the plants constantly, then sure, you could pick it out, but if you left a gap between observations, wouldn't it be a lot harder?