Uranus and Neptune,very disapointing :(?

Question

I have heard observing Uranus and Neptune are really dissapointing.I'm not suprised either because the distance between Saturn and Uranus is huge.Have any of you observed both of these outer system Gas Giants?My father says Uranus appears greenish with no detail on the Telescope.

Answer 1

I have observed Uranus and Neptune many times with my 6 and 10-inch telescopes. Uranus looks like a tiny greenish disk, Neptune an even smaller blue disk. It takes at least 100X to tell Neptune apart from background stars, and no details of course are visible on either planet. The best views I ever had of either planet was of Uranus through a 25-inch Dodsonian at the 2006 Okie-Tex Starparty. Not only was the planet visible, so were it's moons Titania, Oberon, Ariel and Umbriel. Only tiny Miranda was unseen. Your father's right about how they look through a telescope.

Answer 2

I've seen at least one through a 24" telescope while standing on a ladder to look through the eyepiece. It was a small disk. I remember it as blue. We didn't spend much time looking at it, because we tend to spend time looking at more visually interesting objects.

But, the fact that anyone on this planet--for a very small amount of money for a telescope or for gas to get to a local star party--can see every planet in our solar system is truly amazing and not at all disappoint to me.

Imagine! Uranus is 19 times further from the Sun than is Earth. Neptune is almost 30 times further from the Sun than is Earth.

Yet anyone with a desire to do so can view them through a low cost telescope! Or they could even make a telescope at a Telescope Maker's Workshop. If a person were to keep track of the location of the location of planets over one year, they would see that the planets are indeed moving in relation to the stars. The outer planets will prove scientific explanations of our solar system by showing retrograde motion, and the inner planets will go through phases.

Whenever I think about such things, it truly does amaze me.

Answer 3

Starry-eyed is right. Despite the large diameters of these gas giants, their distance from us makes them difficult to see even with home telescopes. The colors blue and blue-green are caused by methane in their atmospheres. Uranus is so featureless that even the Hubble telescope had to use upper clouds to estimate rotation time of the planet.

Even though one may not be able to view the rings or any of the many moons of these two planets, the fact that we are able to view them at all should not be considered a disappointment.

Answer 4

Uranus is blue green Neptune is blue. Both show almost no detail. Both are small in a telescope. Neptune hardly shows a disk. Uranus has a definite disk. It is worth a look to see their color and compare their size with Jupiter and Saturn.

Answer 5

I have pictures of all the planets taken with my 6 inch telescope. As you can see, Uranus and Neptune are really small and don't show detail.

Answer 6

I've never seen Neptune; Uranus is nothing more than a faint dot. I don't even remember any color.

Answer 7

Saturn of course is beautiful, Jupiter is intriguing with it's changing colours and weather, but your father is correct, Uranus is pretty boring.

Answer 8

That's absolutely right and even Saturn needs a filter to bring out detail sometimes

Answer 9

very mature verno...very mature ........but if you ask, I'd have to say that I can see no appropriate angle from which to tackle said exploration. Certainly, and most assuredly, not Manned!! (though its bound to happen once before 50 years have gone by...but with the undertaking supervised by the appropriately clad professional )

Answer 10

Let me add my "two cents" by agreeing that the images of either one are virtually featureless and colorless through decent conventional telescopes