Dazzling planet Venus continues to be a useful celestial signpost to other planets at dusk. Having already showcased Neptune and Mercury this year, the brightest planet has a close conjunction with Uranus on the UK evening of Sunday, 8 March. The pair lie just 2.2 degrees apart against the constellation backdrop of Aries, simultaneously visible in typical 10×50 binoculars.
Have you ever seen Uranus with the naked eye? If not, moonless nights in late October and November offer ideal conditions to test your visual acuity and sky clarity. Uranus reaches opposition in the constellation of Aries on 28 October 2019 and lies 48° above the southern horizon at midnight as seen from the heart of the British Isles. Here is our guide to tracking down the seventh planet from the Sun.
Their high detection rate reveals that near-Earth asteroids are commonplace, but they’re typically small, fleetingly observable and very faint. Hence an opportunity to view a large example bright enough to see in a typical backyard telescope shouldn’t be missed! Here’s our guide to tracking down 700-metre-wide 1998 HL1 between 25 and 29 October 2019.
Have you ever seen planet Uranus? If skies are clear in the UK and Western Europe on the evening of Sunday, 10 February, see this icy gas giant less than 2 degrees (or four lunar diameters) from Mars and 6 degrees from the 5-day-old crescent Moon. In fact, you’ll see all three in a single view of wide-angle binoculars like 7×50s.
Now that the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is upon us and the bright summer stars and planets are slipping away to the west, why not seek out some of the spectacular double stars of the autumn sky? We show you how to find some celestial gems suitable for small to medium telescopes in the constellations of Aquarius, Aries and Andromeda.
Clear nights of early Northern Hemisphere autumn offer ideal opportunities to track down the two outermost planets of the solar system, Uranus and Neptune. What’s more, you don’t need a big telescope to find them. We show you how to locate these gas giants using binoculars. The Moon also passes close to Neptune on 20 October.
Mercury attains a greatest easterly elongation of 19 degrees from the Sun on 1 April. This solar separation combined with a favourable inclination of the ecliptic to the western horizon an hour after sunset, means that the period 25 March to around 8 April offers the year’s best evening showing of the innermost planet for Northern Hemisphere observers.
Have you ever seen Mercury with the naked eye? If not, now is the time to check the elusive innermost planet off your list. Mercury reaches greatest easterly elongation from the Sun on Monday, 18 April, the highlight of a very favourable dusk apparition in the west-northwest for observers in Western Europe and the British Isles.
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