The Planet Uranus through a small telescope

The planet Uranus as seen through my telescope. Because this planet shines like a 6th magnitude star, better setups than mine are required in order to get a brighter view. In this case, weather conditions weren't favourable, either. I tried to put in evidence the small planetary disc, so I had to force the magnification - what made so dark this footage. Toucam PCVC740K, no modifications. Newtonian telescope, 7" primary mirror.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Planet
• Uranus
• telescope
• webcam
• newtonian

[nehal0001]

small telescope??????

you call 7" dob a small telescope???

[balzerbarn]

@nehal0001 "Small" is also related to: 1)planet's features; 2)webcam features; 3)equatorial mount. One fellow could be pretty content to watch this planet through naked eye under favorable circumstances or, more frequently, on a easy-to-do long exposure image using a dslr camera and standard lens. Another fellow would try to put in evidence the planet's disk using an untouched pcvc740k joined to a 7" scope in eyepiece proj. In the latter case, that fellow discovered how difficult it is.

[daconmiked]

Wow , awesome . Can you see Neptune or is it too far away ?

[balzerbarn]

@daconmiked Neptune is not only smaller in apparent size, it's even too much dim in brightness for my setup at these magnifications, I should switch to a more powerful webcam or feel pretty content to record it at direct focus, what should show it very similar to a star. Anyway I looked at Neptune several times at 250-400X through my telescope, it's quite easy to spot as a small star even through a binocular, provided you use a detailed and updated star map under good skies.

[ThaSchwab]

Be happy that you saw it; it's hundreds of millions of miles away.

[back2thefutre]

cool, I saw uranus last night on my meade lxd75 6 in. It was way cool

[AccessDenied55]

I saw it from my telescope, though it was only a blue blur and I could see some rings :) Better than nothing!

[neil73]

I saw Neptune through my skywatcher 8'' reflector the other night. It looked like a blue star at X80 and a distinguishable disk (a bit like Jupiter through binoculars) with the barlow lens (X160). I could've gone higher in terms of magnification, but it was getting light: Neptune is an early morning object at the moment.

[thatswhattheyis]

I checked it out from my 10" a few nights ago. I had it at 133x and I could see a definite light blue disk. I will be getting a 2x barlow soon. Waiting to see it at 266X!

[balzerbarn]

@weaklingzhukovsky You're right, ty for your addendum.

[weaklingzhukovsky]

@ParaglidingManiac

At low magnification, it looks like a star. But at high magnification, the disk is obvious.

[weaklingzhukovsky]

@Notfromthisworld7

Yup. It's not obvious when you first see it as a dim star. You have to star hop with a good planetarium software in order to find it. But it can be seen with my 6x24 finder as a "star". I believe the right time to look for it is now because of its proximity to Jupiter.

[Notfromthisworld7]

I have trouble finding Uranus through my telescope.

[TheGFtrooper]

cool