Uranus, the 8th planet from the Sun, is a mysterious giant. This pale blue-green ball can be seen with the naked eye, but only when the sky is dark and moonless, and then just barely. It looks more like a dim star than a planet, and our ancestors didn’t realize it was a planet until William Herschel studied it with his telescope in 1781.
In binoculars, Uranus is pretty easy to spot. Compared to a star, it will look a bit bigger, fuzzier, and with a slightly blue-green tint. In telescopes with high power, you might see a featureless disk. Uranus has 27 moons, but they’re small, dim, and not easy to see. Four of them might be worth looking for: Titania and Oberon could be seen with a medium-sized telescope, while Umbriel and Ariel need big telescopes.
Uranus is way farther from the Sun than Earth, and it takes 84 years to go around the Sun. So, it moves super slowly in Earth’s sky, taking about seven years to move from one constellation of the zodiac to the next.
* Uranus is in Aires (see above).
* It will be too close to the sun in earth's sky for most of this month to be viewed.
* By month's end, it will be visible in morning before twilight (see above).
From a very dark, moonless location, look for a dim, bluish-green point of light on the ecliptic at the precise location shown. To confirm, use binoculars or a telescope to better see the color. No features will be visible even in a telescope.
Uranus (June, 2018)
