10/23/2018 – Ephemeris – Uranus is at opposition from the Sun today

Ephemeris for Tuesday, October 23rd. The Sun will rise at 8:08. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 36 minutes, setting at 6:44. The Moon, 1 day before full, will set at 7:48 tomorrow morning.

Later tonight the planet Uranus will reach opposition from the Sun. This is also about the time it is closest to the Earth at 18.9 Astronomical Units, or 18.9 times the Earth’s distance from the Sun, or 1.8 billion miles away. Uranus now is just barely visible to the naked eye by those with perfect vision at magnitude 5.7. It is fairly easy to spot in binoculars as a blue-green star. There are no blue-green stars. However it is in a rather star poor part of the sky. It is close to the bright Moon tonight, so I’d wait until Sunday night to try to spot it in dark skies. Then Uranus will be in the east at 9 p.m. below and right of the rightmost star of the three brightest stars of the constellation Aries. About half way from that star to the bottom leftmost star of Pisces. Uranus was the first new planet found since antiquity by William Herschel in 1781.

The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Wide view of Uranus finder chart looking east at 9 p.m. Sunday October 28, 2018. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).

Narrow view of Uranus finder chart looking east at 9 p.m. Sunday October 28, 2018. It shows stars down to 9th magnitude. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).