Uranus and Neptune

[russ]

Myself and Rob were out last night having a look at this pair. Not the best of nights with a nearly full moon nearby Neptune. And probably needed to wait a little longer into the night for Uranus. But myself and Rob were dead keen to see this pair. Both planets are up by 11pm but better to wait until midnight or later to give Uranus time to rise.

I've been observing 25 years now and i'm ashamed to say i've never searched out Neptune....period! And only seen Uranus once and that was back in 1988.

Using Skyscan (how lame) we picked up Neptune in the Skymax 150. At lowish power only it's colour gave it away at first glance. With the mag at 90x it was still star like but somehow you could tell it wasn't. We then piled on the mags to 400x and ended with a tiny disk. Absolutely wonderful, both so chuffed to see it. 2 Arc Minutes is incredibly small but satisfying to see it neverless.

We had to wait a further 30mins for Uranus as it was stuck behind a tree. But we a got a first glimpse of it through the finder, shining on/off through the leaves. Again the colour is obvious and also the lack of twinkling. In the scope the disk was immediately apparent, all be it tiny. The same high mags weren't needed with the 10mm Elite at 180x showing a nice little disk.

Well worth searching these two out. Without GOTO in a moonlit murky sky Neptune will be a real challenge. But Uranus should be much easier.

Russ

[trevboyd]

Very cool, Russ. I found Uranus last year with my 5", but could never confirm Neptune. Hope to get another look at them this year in the 8".

Trev

[Greg]

Excellent stuff..

If I get a clear one tonight i'll give it a go..

Greg

[NickH]

Well worth the look. Uranus in particular is a wonderful object to observe, and if you have a good CCD, the moons make a good challenging target

[russ]

Definitely worth the effort. We did remark that it would have been nice to image Uranus....but alas i've sold all my imaging kit.

btw there were a good few meteors about. Some real nice ones too.

Jupiter was good early on, just after twilight but was pretty awful by 11.30pm. And we clocked up a few DSO's too.

Despite the moon (we didn't even take a peek at the moon) and washed out sky it was still an enjoyable night.

Russ

[legion48]

Good on you Russ.

I managed to image Neptune last year in October and again in November as confirmation.

http://astro-web.eu/neptune.html

[geoff_k]

Russ

Well done you. Never easy, but worth the trouble. I saw Neptune last night. Not so difficult to find as it can be as it is currently quite near a brightish star, Deneb Algiedi. It's also close to opposition as if that really matters with something so faint. Want to try and image it with Triton if I can, but last night was the first clear night I have had down here for about three weeks so not too hopeful I can do it.

Uranus is in an area devoid of bright stars so a go-to really helps. To stoop to the level of schoolboy humour (apologies) you can now say you were up all night looking at Uranus

Geoff

[Periscope]

I must have a look for this pair myself, once we get a decent cloud free sky. The last few weeks over the Midlands has been pretty dismal and not worth getting the scope out.

Geoff :salute:

[Rob]

It was a great night!.. can now tick the 'Solar System' all done box. The Skymax 150 performed very well indeed I have to say!.

[Neon]

I decided to look for Uranus last night (much to the wifes' amusement) but couldn't find it. Seeing wasn't great, thin cloud and light pollution made it very tricky, and eventually (00:40) I gave up, since star hopping was particularly hard.

I was using an 80mm widefield scope, at about 20x mag. Should Uranus be apparent as a planet in such a setup (obviously once found I'd swap lenses)? If the weather's good I'll try again tonight, so any advice would be appreciated.

Mark

[mdstuart]

I have found both fairly easily in my 5.1 inch reflector recently with the aid of cart du ciel and star hoping. Uranus looks like a disk in my 9mm lens but is white and the edge is quite faint making it look like a very out of focus star rather than having a sharp outline as you see in the text books. Neptune even in the 5mm lens was no more than a "i can just tell this is not a star" a bit like the feeling with many planetary nebula!! still really rewarding when you find them.

[vemarstar]

I will have a go at locating uranus , when sky is clear it's been disapointing weather over the uk the last month with cloud.

One question is uranus very low in the sky to observe ?.

[Talitha]

A number of years ago I located Neptune and Uranus with a pair of common 7x35 binos.. both were very easy to spot but it helped to have a good chart.

[Neon]

I think I see where I'm going wrong, I have the wrong house!

I'm pretty sure that the trees in my garden are getting in my way. It might be worth me getting up at about 4am to have a look for Uranus as it'll be in the right direction for me then.

Using binoculars is definitely a good idea to help me locate the evasive planet.

[Doc]

I've seen Uranus a few times.

Neptune on the other hand is really hard for me to find.