Star Struck Style

I’m into naked-eye astronomy. I usually can tell you which “stars” in the sky are actually planets because I’m always looking up. Still, I can’t say with certainty that I’ve ever seen Uranus.

Uranus isn’t visible to the naked eye, but it is visible with a relatively low-powered telescope or a decent pair of binoculars. The difficult part with seeing Uranus is knowing where to look. Tonight, that shouldn’t be a problem at all.

Venus and Uranus make a conjunction in the night sky this evening. If you look to the west about an hour after sunset, Venus will be the brilliant “star” just above the horizon. But if you are able to take a closer look with a telescope, you can see Uranus just above Venus.

Space.com gives good instructions about how to locate Uranus here. Because the conjunction is going to be so low in the sky, it might be impossible to see in places where pollution obscures objects near the horizon. And even the slightest bit of cloud-cover will spoil the experience. But if you are able to look, and you own a telescope or some binoculars, take a moment to locate Uranus. Opportunities like this don’t come along very often.