Seeing Uranus with 6-inch Dobsonian

[Matt1979]

I think I might have seen Uranus on Friday night with my 6-inch Sky-watcher Dobsonian.  I haven't had the Dobsonian for long and I was really keen on locating Uranus.  The seeing conditions weren't perfect and my area always suffers from light pollution, but after studying an online diagram of Uranus's position, I did see a point of light that looked different to all the stars that had a very faint bluish-green tinge.  I used a 6.5mm eyepiece.

If this was Uranus, I noticed that it faded in and out of view for some reason unlike any star I observed.  I also saw a video of Uranus on YouTube taken through a 10-inch reflector and this also showed the planet fading, and its colour also disappearing and re-appearing.

I studied the area in Pisces around Uranus's location  throughly and every other object looked like a star, so I think this object probably was Uranus.  I have only ever previously seen the planet with a 3-inch refractor when it was near Jupiter in 2010 and it only appeared as a point of light.

[Paul73]

That is probably it. Good description. If you up the magnification to 150x or more, you may start to see it resolve into a tiny disc.

Paul

[Moonshane]

Uranus can be seen in your 9x50mm finder as an extra bright star compared with any average star map. I am sure you got it or if not will get it  (and Neptune) with your 6" dob. It's a good planetary scope.

[dweller25]

@Matt - I was also watching Uranus Friday evening through an 8" Mak -  I was at x200 and it was a definite disk.

[Matt1979]

That is probably it. Good description. If you up the magnification to 150x or more, you may start to see it resolve into a tiny disc.

Paul

Thanks.  I couldn't understand, though, why the object kept fading in an out of view.  Although I think it was probably Uranus, its colour was only very faint although I don't know if light pollution can be a factor in how distinctive Uranus's colour can be.

[acey]

Fading in and out would be due to variations in transparency, i.e. there was a haze of varying thickness, not necessarily visible to the naked eye. Other stars in the field would have faded too, but you weren't concentrating on those. Colour isn't affected by light pollution, but depends on the observer's eye and the optics of the scope. Uranus is best seen at high power, when it should be clearly seen as a disc, very small but definitely not star-like. If in doubt, sketch the field and look again on subsequent nights. Uranus will move with respect to the stars.

[Matt1979]

Fading in and out would be due to variations in transparency, i.e. there was a haze of varying thickness, not necessarily visible to the naked eye. Other stars in the field would have faded too, but you weren't concentrating on those. Colour isn't affected by light pollution, but depends on the observer's eye and the optics of the scope. Uranus is best seen at high power, when it should be clearly seen as a disc, very small but definitely not star-like. If in doubt, sketch the field and look again on subsequent nights. Uranus will move with respect to the stars.

Thanks.  For some reason Uranus was hard to find just because almost everything I saw looked like a star and the object I think was Uranus only looked slightly different.  I can imagine as the seeing conditions weren't the best, this resulted in the planet's colour not being very visible.

[dweller25]

Matt, you are correct - seeing was quite poor at the time leading to an unsteady view - good catch though

[cotterless45]

Super catch, quite a neat binocular target,

Nick.

[dick_dangerous]

Uranus presents an unmistakable blue-green disc with my 150P at 150x, ditto Neptune.

DD

[Dave In Vermont]

Human perception of colour can/does vary all over the map. It's about our last sense to develop. And I've found that nowhere in the world of astronomy does this fact make itself more apparent than the colour of Uranus. Some report it's green. Some say blue. Some only see grey. I've made a study of this. It's fascinating to me. So I suggest using high enough magnification to resolve it as a disk. Then see what colour you see.

I see Uranus as a green colour similar to Dutch pea-soup. And now I'm hungry. Bye!

Clear Skies,

Dave

[Matt1979]

I finally saw Uranus on Sunday night and again on Monday.  Although I had studied star charts carefully and I scanned the area below Delta Piscium with my x20 binoculars, it was still difficult to find Uranus with the telescope and due to light pollution in my area it was also hard to see stars in Pisces in the finderscope.  Sunday was the clearest night in my area for weeks and I definately saw Uranus as a tiny white dot with a bluish-green tinge.  It was very noticeable how Uranus looked very different to the surrounding stars.  Monday's seeing conditions weren't as good, but I was still able to make out Uranus although its bluish-green colour didn't appear and instead it looked slightly grey.

I am now not sure if the fading object I saw the Friday before last was Uranus - seeing conditions weren't that good as we have said, but at least I have seen the planet now.  Neptune will be my next target but I am not sure if it will be too low as I live in a hilly area.

[Iainp]

Hi Matt, I finally found Uranus back in August through my 10" scope. I was surprised how difficult it was to find, and without high magnification I certainly wouldn't have recognised it as a planet.  I was expecting it to be colourful but saw only grey. Here's my video of it through the 10". Very unimpressive!  I've given up on Neptune for now. Good luck though, Iain 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4F8Y2j6Pu0w#t=10 

[Iainp]

The above link starts the video towards the end of the clip for some reason. Here's the full thing:

http://youtu.be/4F8Y2j6Pu0w 

[nephilim]

Well done bagging Uranus, give Neptune a go as the colour is much more distinct.

Steve

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Congrats on bagging Uranus. Neptune is even harder to distinguish from a star, except for the strange colour

[Digger1895]

I managed Uranus at my first go about 6-8 weeks ago with my 130. I'd checked where it should be on my setting circles and popped in a 32mm plossl. The next step was what made it easy. In my FOV I could only see 4 or 5 stars, one of them was sorta bluey but it distinguished itself by being steady, absolutely no twinkle. I moved to a 17 then 10mm and it was starting to take a constant sharp image, and when I used the 4mm UWA at 162 it was undeniably the planet.

I was well chuffed as before I started to get into scopes, about 9 months ago, I never thought I would get a result for this planet.

[Matt1979]

The above link starts the video towards the end of the clip for some reason. Here's the full thing:

http://youtu.be/4F8Y2j6Pu0w

Hi Iain,  thanks for the link.  I agree about Uranus's grey colour - on the second night due to the poorer seeing conditions the planet appeared a grey colour.  I am not sure what size of telescope is needed to show Uranus's moons, but I heard that a large amateur reflector can even show Miranda.