Moons of Uranus

[physicus]

I was just about to pack up last night from a moon-lit Ha deep sky session on the Eagle Nebula (Damson tree stopped play), when I noticed Uranus about to appear from behind our house.  So with no real planning, I turned the rig onto Uranus and gave it a single 1 minute exposure (C9.25/reducer/Atik460ex/1x1/OAG).  Result: three Uranian moons!   Of course I then spent an age finding and checking various ephemerides/planetarium software/other, to see what I'd got.  Uranus itself is less than 4 seconds across, and to give an idea of scale, Oberon here is about 38 seconds out; so it's all tight stuff.  I've seen some nice work on this site done with a C14 at prime focus and shorter exposures, and that's for sure the way to go.  Anyhow, I was so enthused by this, and realising I'd never actually seen Uranus in the flesh - with my eye so to speak - that I went to the radical lengths of pulling the camera and reducer off and having a proper look with an 8.8mm eyepiece.  OUR moon was getting silly by now, so no obvious Uranian moons visible this way, but the planet itself was a  little blue disc as billed!  Successful night, apart that pulling the camera off means my latest Eagle subs will have to live without flats. 

Btw, Starry Night shows the Uranian moons well, and I found this site handy too: http://new-pds-rings-2.seti.org/tools/

[physicus]

Oops, just realised I should have posted in 'Imaging' :-P. 

[MarsG76]

Moons of my what? ha ha... 

Great to image the moons of Uranus... well done.... 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice "target of opportunity"; well caught.

[xtreemchaos]

a lovely image mate,its so nice to see her with her moons,in 30 odd years ive only managed to see Uranus twice with a scope but never with moons.well done,thanks for sharing.charl.

[JeremyS]

Great result!

[Grotemobile]

It is quite amazing to see Uranus for the first time.

Even though, it is just a, green big dot.

Steve.

[laudropb]

Lovely capture. Thanks for posting.

[Demonperformer]

Thanks for posting. These babies are definitely on my have-a-go-this-year list.