I know, I know. It’s been done to death. Still with thanks to the fine folks at Space.com, here’s your guide to finding Uranus using a star map and a pair of binoculars. 
Uranus
Barely visible to the unaided eye on very dark, clear nights, the planet Uranus is now visible during the evening hours among the stars of Aquarius, the Water Carrier. It is best to study a sky map first, and then scan that region with binoculars. Using a magnification of 150-power with a telescope of at least three-inch aperture, you should be able to resolve it into a tiny, pale-green featureless disk.
Uranus, which lies at a mean distance of 1.8 billion miles (2.9 million kilometers) from the sun, has a diameter of about 31,800 miles (51,100 kilometers). At last count, Uranus has 27 moons, all in orbits lying in the planet’s equator in which there is also a complex of nine narrow, nearly opaque rings, which were discovered in 1978. Uranus has a rocky core, surrounded by a liquid mantle of water, methane, and ammonia, encased in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium.
A bizarre feature of the planet is how far Uranus is tipped. Its north pole lies 98 degrees from a perpendicular to its orbit plane. Thus, its seasons are extreme: when the sun rises at its north pole, it stays up for 42 Earth-years; then it sets and the north pole is in darkness for 42 Earth-years.
Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus on March 13, 1781, noting that it was moving slowly through the constellation Gemini. Initially, however, Herschel thought he had discovered a new comet.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Leave a Reply