uranus is difficult to find!

[SirFoo]

Hi all. Trying to view uranus at the moment while holidaying in lanzarote. Finding Jupiter is easy but I cannot see uranus. I am only using bins with 10 mag so it may not be possible. Am I wasting my time?

[kniclander]

You might see uranus with 10x50s (but I doubt it somehow) but you would not be able to difernetiate it from a star. You need a print out from something like cartes du ciel or stellarium to show you exactly where it is.

[peeceeTal2M]

Hope this is of some help allthough it will be difficult to spot with 10 x 50's i would imagine!

uranus.bmp

[jgs001]

I didn't spot it in my 10x50's (I didn't try) but I did find it in my 15x70's. I spent a long time, however, cross referencing the view in the Bino's with various star chart apps to ensure I was looking at the right point of light...

[abumuhannadh]

i have seen Uranus with my 16x50 bins, but it looks just like a star. and i saw it in not so good conditions, i think it can be seen thru a 10x too.

[DarkerSky]

I have spotted Uranus with 16x50 bins before, but as has been said it really just looks like a star at that power

[Talitha]

Uranus is a mag 5.8, why is it so difficult? Years ago, Uranus and Neptune were in the upper left corner of Capricorn, and i spotted them both with 7x35's (Neptune is a mag 7.8). Having good charts helped... keep trying, you'll get it.

[brantuk]

Well there's an obvious joke answer to the question but I'm not going to say it lol

[msinclairinork]

hahahaha! cant believe i didnt even think of that when reading this thread!

hehehee....

[abumuhannadh]

i didn't know about that joke, but reading the title after you guys mentioned it, i now get it

[acme]

Not sure you will find it with 10x50 bino's in any conditions, try using an endoscope you will be amazed at what you can see......

Sorry!!

[jgs001]

Can we keep it clean and on topic please...

[themos]

In a 5 degree field near Jupiter there are only mag 6 stars at the moment. One of those points of light is Uranus.

[Totnesdave]

That star partway between them, as seen in the plot above, HIP 417, acts as a splendid pointer at the moment, it's similar brightness, so just hop from Jupiter to that one, then to the next, which should then be Uranus. Not a 'jump out and grab you though'. In my 4" refractor at x75 it was merely a tiny resolved disk with a slightly perceptible green hue

Best of luck

Dave

[Star child]

I have seen it with 10x50's and you can see it has a bluish green colour compared to other stars, the best time is when its passing in front of background stars if you obeserve it one night and make a note of the star field around it, youll see that it has moved if you observe again in a few days

[SirFoo]

Thanks for all the fantastic advice. I'm now back in Scotland so at the moment no chance of seeing it! The weather and the clear nights will no doubt make it very difficult. I will keep on trying though. My origiinal title was meant slightly tongue in cheek. They do say that Uranus is the butt of many poor jokes!

[ollypenrice]

As Carol says, it is not too faint to see naked eye but noticing any movement would be hard, which is why the ever vigilant ancient observers never did see it I guess. It would be very easy to see but not to identify an any kind of bins.

When better placed a few years ago it was showing a disc in the 10 inch SCT. Not a big disc but not quite stellar either. Good colour, too.

But this week both Uranus and Neptune were not, to any real extent 'non stellar' in apperance in the TEC140. You could kid yourself into believing otherwise but that's nothing new!

Olly