Help finding Uranus

[wal]

Hi all
This might sound silly but I'm trying to locate Uranus by star hopping without the use of computerised equipment. Does anyone know of a good web site that contains the relevant southern hemisphere star charts to enable me to nail this planet free-hand?
I'm using 10x42 binos from suburban melbourne (strathmore) and a 4" scope.
I thought I nailed it on saturday night, by checking the star patterns around Jupiter as shown in wikiski.org but I'm not so sure as I expected to see a greenish dot of some sort close by the star patterns on my computer to no avail. Perhaps I should try from Woodend next time.

Thanks in advance,

Wal.

[DavidU]

Hi Wal, I had a peep at it a few days ago, a little hard to find and quite small.
Do your self a favour and down load Stellarium, it will make things far easier to find.
http://www.stellarium.org/

[astro_nutt]

Hi Wal,
I found Uranus from my friends backyard in Keilor. Find Jupiter then pan down towards the East ever so slowly. You'll find a blue-green dot without the starspikes that looks out of focus.
Cheers!

[mithrandir]

At the moment Uranus is about 1.5deg NE of Jupiter.

If you follow the line of the moons you will be pretty close.

[wal]

Thanks for the tips, will try again when the clouds disappear. Dave I had stellarium on my previous computer but never used it. How does it compare to wikiski.org?

[OICURMT]

Screen capture from Stellarium. Note the position for Callisto and Ganymede and then use this as a guide to find Uranus.

FOV for the image is about 2 degrees (according to Stellarium)

OIC!

[BorisM]

hi Wal, Stellarium is the go mate or even better your local Astronomical club.
good luck

[mental4astro]

Hi Wal,

I don't have Stellarium on tap on the field. Instead I use this map from Sky and Telescope to locate both Neptune & Uranus:

http://media.skyandtelescope.com/documents/Uranus_Neptune_2010.pdf

Mental.

[mental4astro]

To show how easy it is to find Uranus, along with Jupiter at this point in time, have a look at this stunning sequence of five sketches made through 7X50 binoculars back in September over 5 successive nights. The link will take you to one of the pages on 'Astronomy Sketch of the Day':

http://www.asod.info/?p=3709

Quite a beautiful piece of work I reckon.

[wal]

thanks again to all. I have been following it every night and its both rewarding and easy when you know where it is. now for neptune, which I believe I spotted two years ago with 10x42's but didn't track it and now I want to be sure.