05 December 2012

Spotting Planet Uranus with Binoculars



Uranus is a very easy target for binoculars and telescopes. Now in the constellation of Pisces, planet Uranus will be close to Zenith at the time of sunset giving lot of time to spot and observe the planet. Uranus is at 5.8 magnitude, close to naked eye limit of 6th magnitude and the planet can be seen with just a pair of 7X50 binoculars even in light polluted city.

Here is a wide angle view of the position of Uranus.



We can use stars in Pegasus or Cetus as guiding stars for getting Uranus in the field of view of 7X50 binoculars.


Here is binocular field guide from Iota Ceti in Cetus constellation to Planet Uranus.
Each circle represents field of view of 7X50 binoculars and here we can see how much we have to move and in what direction to get Uranus in the center of the field. In this map we are moving towards Pegasus from Iota Ceti.  

From Pegasus



Here the map is from Gamma Pegasi to Uranus, we take Gamma Pegasi in the center of the field of the binocular and move south in a straight line, after passing omega Piscium we should get Uranus in lower field of view of the binocular. 

Field of Uranus

This is the reference field of view to confirm the we have Uranus in the binoculars. Hope you will enjoy spotting and observing Uranus.