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posted by takyon on Wednesday October 18 2017, @10:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the 400-years-of-telescopes-and-you-go-nude dept.

Tonight – October 19, 2017 – the planet Uranus, the 7th planet outward from the sun, is at opposition. In other words, our planet Earth in its smaller, faster orbit swings in between the sun and Uranus today, placing Uranus opposite the sun in our sky.

Because Uranus is opposite the sun, Uranus rises in the east at sunset, climbs highest up for the night at midnight (midway between sunset and sunrise) and sets in the west at sunrise. Not only does Uranus stay out all night long, but this world is now coming closest to Earth for the year and shining at its brightest best in our sky.

But even at its brightest, Uranus is still quite faint. It is barely perceptible as a dim speck of light to the unaided eye. At a magnitude of 5.68, Uranus shines no more brilliantly than the sky's faintest stars. Given a dark sky free of light pollution, you might see Uranus with the eye alone – but only if you know right where to look for this distant world in front of the rather faint constellation, Pisces.

As good fortune would have it, this year the new moon – a moon most nearly between the Earth and sun for this month – falls on October 19, too, at nearly the same hour that Uranus reaches opposition.

Source: earthsky.org

takyon: The opposition peaks during the day in the U.S. (October 19, 17:21 UTC), so maybe try it on both nights.


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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @09:26AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 19 2017, @09:26AM (#584443)

    The moon also affects the ambient light due to reflection from other objects nearby, including the ground you are standing on. Which unless you are looking more or less straight up will always in your field of view, and thus affect your eyes' dark adaption.

    You're right, however, that the moon only will affect your adaption if it is visible on the sky (assuming no clouds; but then, clouds are already quite detrimental to seeing the stars even without moonlight ;-). But note that while the moon is only on the sky about half of the time, the moon phase determined which half it is: At full moon, it is exactly that half at which the sun is not in the sky, so whenever the moon does not disturb your view of the stars, the sun will do a much more thorough job of that. So the mopon phases not only affect the brightness of the moon as seen from earth (by showing more or less of the lightened side), but also the amount of time the moon is seen on the sky. So the closer to new moon you are, not only the less will your view of the stars be disturbed by the light of the moon when it is visible, but also, the more time you have to see the stars without any disturbance from the moon.

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