2024, August 16: See Planet Uranus near Pleiades

August 16, 2024:  Use a binocular to see planet Uranus near the Pleiades before sunrise.

2020, March 7: Venus is 2.3° to the right of Uranus.
Photo Caption – 2020, March 7: Venus is 2.3° to the right of Uranus.

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 by Jeffrey L. Hunt

Begin at the Pleiades Star Cluster

The Pleiades star cluster.
Photo Caption – The Pleiades star cluster. (U.S. Naval Observatory)

Slow-moving planet Uranus is near the Pleiades star cluster in the eastern sky before sunrise.  Use a binocular to find it.

First look at the Pleiades through the binocular.  The brighter blue white stars resemble a miniature dipper.  Most sky watchers can see six or seven stars without optical help.  The stellar bundle is sometimes known as the “Seven Sisters.”

Subaru - the shield- Pleiades star cluster
Image Caption – The Subaru logo – meaning shield – is the Pleiades star cluster. (Credit: Subaru of America, Inc.)

Subaru, meaning shield, is the Japanese name for the stars, and they decorate the automobile’s badge.

The cluster is less than 500 light years away, and the stars are considerably brighter than the sun.

The cluster may have a few hundred members and covers a larger patch of the sky than the moon. It spills out of the field of view of even low-power eyepieces.  So, the package of stars is best observed through a binocular.

See Planet Uranus near Pleiades

See Planet Uranus near Pleiades
Chart Caption – 2024, August 16: Uranus and the Pleiades appear in the same binocular field. This chart is useful until they appear into evening twilight next spring.

Find the Pleiades high in the east-southeast, above bright Jupiter and Mars during morning twilight.  The star cluster and planet Uranus are best observed before morning twilight brightens too much.  The sky begins to brighten about 100 minutes before sunrise at the mid-northern latitudes.

Once the star cluster is studied, move it to the upper left of the field of few.  The stars 13 Tauri (13 Tau on the chart) and 14 Tauri (14 Tau) are near the lower right edge.  Planet Uranus is about the same brightness as the stellar pair and about 1° to 13 Tauri’s upper right.

Planet Uranus

This is an image of the planet Uranus taken by the spacecraft Voyager 2 in 1986. The Voyager project is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Photo Caption – This is an image of the planet Uranus taken by the spacecraft Voyager 2 in 1986. The Voyager project is managed for NASA by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

The planet appears as an aquamarine star.  A telescope that can yield magnification over 150x can see a tiny globe, but no details.

A Uranian year is 84 earth-years long.  The planet moves eastward against the starfield very slowly, appearing in the same binocular field as the Pleiades until 2027 as it slowly passes. It returns to tonight’s position in 84 years.

In more favorable conditions, Uranus is visible to the unaided eye in a dark location.  The planet was first documented as a star possibly as early as 128 BC by Hipparchus.  Through a telescope during the 18th century, William Herschel noted that it moved slowly compared to the distant starfield – a new planet. Herschel wanted to name it after England’s king, but tradition held with a mythological character.

Uranus, rings and Moons from NASA's Webb Space Telescope
Photo Caption – Uranus, rings and Moons from NASA’s Webb Space Telescope (NASA Photo)

At its distance, it receives less than 1% of the sunlight that reaches Earth. The planet is considerably colder so that the compounds that show in Jupiter’s clouds freeze and fall to lower levels. At Uranus, the upper atmospheric levels are mainly hydrogen and helium, transparent in the brutal cold of the distant solar system, but the aquamarine clouds are from methane and ammonia.

Uranus was first visited by Voyager 2 from a track that carried it past the four large planets. The planet’s rings and satellites, not easily visible from Earth, were first seen. Close-up images were captured of the known satellites. Today the planet’s moon count is about 30.

Each week, the star cluster is farther westward before sunrise. They appear with Uranus in the eastern evening sky during mid-October and farther westward each week. Look for them until next spring when it disappears in the evening twilight. 

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