Neptune

[Size9Hex]

A brief post in case it prompts anyone else to take a look and enjoy the icy depths of the solar system! 

I hadn't realised that Neptune had started rising at a (debatably) reasonable time of night. Caught it last night at 1am about 10 degrees above the horizon (from Hampshire). It might be hard to find in the horizon murk if not for being directly below Zeta Aquarii which (for me) is just bright enough to shine through to the naked eye. In the 10" dob, a low 50x revealed a star that didn't look quite right (not sure how to describe it!) with a subtle but lovely blue colour. At 250x the colour was less obvious, and although the atmosphere wasn't helping, I felt that the star had become a disk. At mag 7.9, it's doable in smaller scopes (and binos) too, although I only barely got it in binos last year when it was much higher in the sky than 10 degrees.

[John]

Good spot Paul

I'd like to take a peek at Neptune again. I managed to spot it's brightest moon Triton with my 12" dob last time around. That may well be possible with your 10" as well.

 

[John]

Oops !!! - double post !!

Please could some kind Mod delete this one

 

[Size9Hex]

12 minutes ago, John said:

Good spot Paul

I'd like to take a peek at Neptune again. I managed to spot it's moon Triton with my 12" dob last time around. That may well be possible with your 10" as well.

 

Good shout, that would be fantastic to see. Another one to add to the ever-growing list :-)

[Special K]

Good idea, Paul!  These guys are coming back into prime time and a bit extra altitude as we go into autumn will help. I'm keen to see how the 6" frac does on the ice Giants  

[Dave In Vermont]

Very nice post regarding the depiction of this often overlooked member of our immediate family-group. I intend to hunt it down (again), after my last foray to this funky-blue ice-world. This time with my 150mm Maksutov. The last time was was my 12" SCT. I always delight in the colour people describe Neptune, and Uranus, as being for them.

I see icy-blue -

Dave

[laudropb]

Nice report. Still a bit low in the sky from here, but I hope to catch up with it later in the year.

[cloudsweeper]

Well spotted!  I got great satisfaction from finding Uranus some months ago (but no noticeable colour), so Neptune is of course firmly on the list.

Doug.

[Size9Hex]

2 hours ago, cloudsweeper said:

Well spotted!  I got great satisfaction from finding Uranus some months ago (but no noticeable colour), so Neptune is of course firmly on the list.

Doug.

Nice one! With admittedly limited experience, I've found the colour of Uranus hit and miss. The best impression of the colour was at low magnification and having managed to find a nice bright star to bring into view at the same time. The contrast between star and planet helped. Depends where exactly it finds itself in the sky this time around though! 

[spike95609]

Both Neptune and Uranus are a bit too low in the sky for me at the moment - too many trees, houses, cities, and other things in the way. I was very pleased to get a peak at them for the first time last year though, both as discs and with Uranus looking nicely turquoise.

[Aaron F Johnson]

I noticed last week on stellarium that they were again visible in the east and as Jupiter, Saturn and Mars are now moving west early I have been observing Uranus and Neptune...Although no moon as my small aperture won't pick it up. Very cool none the less. Been struggling with bad weather this year, with the moon out of my night sky coupled with bad seeing it's been difficult compared to last year but I am still managing...