seeing uranus

[Derivious (Tyrone)]

Hi there. I have hit up most planets now such as Venus to Saturn but am curious as to how difficult it is to find.
1 isit hard to find ie can it be seen with an un aided eye to start.
2 is there a minimum set up to find it, i know a stupidly broad question but can most begginer scopes actually see it.
3 could some lovely person maybe post a pic of their own shots of uranus. i would like to know what im looking for( i know its a green/blue blob) but an image would still help. Ideally if the shot was from a similar set up around 4.5" that would be spectacular.
Im pretty sure its a good time to find uranus with my toilet roll.
So sorry for that joke i will hang my head in shame now.

[doppler (Rick)]

Uranus should be visible by naked eye at a dark site but telescopically it is small and can be hard to find. Here's a pic I took a few weeks ago (two pics acutually) to show comparison of size. I will add neptune when the moon is out the way and I get a clear night. Scope is a 180mm mak cassegrain 2700mm fl. Uncropped prime focus.

Rick

[SkyWatch (Dean)]

Hi Tyrone,

Uranus is quite easy to spot even with binos, and in any telescope (even Galileo could have seen it with his 30mm scope if he was looking at the right spot): just check the location with a good star chart or Stellarium (freeware download if you don't have it). Look for a greenish, 6th magnitude star. Don't expect to see any detail, and even at high power it is just a tiny greenish dot. It is well placed in the North in the evenings at present.
Theoretically you can see it naked eye, but in practice it takes a nice dark sky and a bit of experience.
Have fun looking!

- Dean

[Derivious (Tyrone)]

Originally Posted by doppler

Uranus should be visible by naked eye at a dark site but telescopically it is small and can be hard to find. Here's a pic I took a few weeks ago (two pics acutually) to show comparison of size. I will add neptune when the moon is out the way and I get a clear night. Scope is a 180mm mak cassegrain 2700mm fl. Uncropped prime focus.

Rick

This was exactly what I needed. It is heaps more colourful than I thought it would come out, is that scale to saturn? If so that gives me great insight on its size etc.

[doppler (Rick)]

Both planets are to scale, taken with the same scope and magnification. My idea is to try and get all the planets in the one pic to show the size differences. Uranus might be small but is quite green visually. Neptune might be smaller visually but has a definite blue colour to it.

Rick

[ZeroID (Brent)]

You need to factor in the added distances if you are trying to compare size differences.

[doppler (Rick)]

Originally Posted by ZeroID

You need to factor in the added distances if you are trying to compare size differences.

I did mean visual sizes as viewed from earth with a telescope and I do realise that the inner planets and mars do change size visually when their orbits bring them closer to the earth. Not very scientific I know.