Easy way to find Uranus

[Stu]

It's very strange. My goto plonked me slap bang onto Uranus, very obvious disk showing at x171. Tried for Neptune and couldn't get anything. The fov on the mak is very tight so it's tricky to find things. Perhaps I need a bigger finder! Might have to gaffa tape my old ST80 onto it

Stu

[Moonshane]

I had a go at Neptune last night but the clouds scuppered me just as I finally found it. http://britastro.org/computing/im/Neptune2012(J2012).png helped me and it was pretty much between the Sep/Oct markers as expected. It's not as obvious as Uranus though. People seeing this with bins/naked eye must have good skies I was struggling with the finder although it's in the murk for me.

[Moonshane]

in fact, this is the map I used in the end. http://dcford.org.uk/findercharts.php?obj=neptune&year=2012

[sam mayo]

i usally use my netbook coupled with stellerium for finding objects but find that it is just to bright so i used my book "stargazing" and went to the appropriate month etc and when i lined objects up i found it wasent right ,i was trying to find hercules and on the map it said it was diagonally across the milkyway from andromeda but things just didn't match up even close i think i was making a big obvious mistake any 1 shed any light or advice,

i have found other things before using it but never compared location of object to me so never noticed thanks sam

[Moonshane]

Uranus is very easy tonight. put the scope in the same sort of place and there's an obvious 'double star' in the finder. one of these is Uranus the other is 44 pisc. Managed to see Titania tonight too as well as Neptune (easier tonight).

also tried to see min power to see Uranus disc and it was an obvious disc even at 70x to my eyes. Neptune trickier but high power not needed.

[Moonshane]

p.s. the transparency here is rubbish with Pisces (and even the Hyades!) hard to see naked eye. hope to get more ice giant moons in better conditions. I think Oberon (U) and Triton (N) should be do-able.