Is Uranus sometimes as bright as Venus?

xjx388 said:
Thanks all.

It’s only been recently that I started spending time outside looking at the stars as a form of meditation/relaxation. I had never seen Venus so bright.

And now I know that maybe my phone isn’t the most reliable instrument for star gazing. Maybe it’s time to invest in better equipment. Any recommendations?
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Telescope :D
 
TragicMonkey said:
Uranus can't be seen with the naked eye. That's why the pre-telescope ancients only knew about five other planets.
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Not so. They simply would not have noticed it as it so dim and moves so slowly among the stars.

This is not very surprising, since it is between 30 and 240 times dimmer (and moves among the stars three times more slowly) than the next brightest planet, Saturn.


wollery said:
Unless you're in a very dark place (i.e. way, way out in the middle of nowhere) you won't be seeing Uranus at all without optical aids!
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Yes this.

Uranus at its brightest (mag 5.38) is visible to the naked eye, under ideal viewing conditions, for someone with very good eyesight. I have seen it once in the near perfect seeing at Stavely in Canterbury back in the 1980s and that was after I had first found it in a Dobsonian telescope, worked out some nearby stars as reference points, so I knew exactly where to look.

For reference in the OP, Uranus will never be close to Venus at its dimmest (-2.98). My back of the envelope calculation makes Uranus at best case, just over 2,000 times dimmer than Venus.


Interestingly, the minor planet Vesta is also sometimes visible to the naked eye (mag 5.2)
 
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I’m really thinking of driving out to one of the many dark places nearby that Night Sky helpfully points out. I have binoculars (why didn’t I think to pull them out yesterday?). I don’t think a telescope would show me much here besides the really bright stuff but out there...I’m prepared to be awed.
 
DevilsAdvocate said:
That's what she said!
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Yeah. First time I heard this was possibly unintentional. Was listing to a TV program decades ago, maybe "What's My Line," and as a lead in to the next segment the host said: "stay tuned as we find out if there are rings around Uranus." Said completely straight faced. After the commercial break the program continued and the contestants, as well as the host, were struggling not to crack up.
 
The first time I heard a Uranus joke, I was probably all of five years old.

Tyler: Where's he from? Uranus. Get it. Your anus?
Greg: He doesn't get it Ty.
Tyler: Get it? Your anus?
Greg: He doesn't get it.
Elliot: You're so immature!
Greg: And you're such a sinus supremus.
Elliott: Zero charisma!

I'll be 40 in a month and I still have no ***** clue what a sinus supremus is, btw.
 
DuvalHMFIC said:
The first time I heard a Uranus joke, I was probably all of five years old.

Tyler: Where's he from? Uranus. Get it. Your anus?
Greg: He doesn't get it Ty.
Tyler: Get it? Your anus?
Greg: He doesn't get it.
Elliot: You're so immature!
Greg: And you're such a sinus supremus.
Elliott: Zero charisma!

I'll be 40 in a month and I still have no ***** clue what a sinus supremus is, btw.
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Literally big nothing, but in context the rough equivalent to airhead.
 
DuvalHMFIC said:
The first time I heard a Uranus joke, I was probably all of five years old.

Tyler: Where's he from? Uranus. Get it. Your anus?
Greg: He doesn't get it Ty.
Tyler: Get it? Your anus?
Greg: He doesn't get it.
Elliot: You're so immature!
Greg: And you're such a sinus supremus.
Elliott: Zero charisma!

I'll be 40 in a month and I still have no ***** clue what a sinus supremus is, btw.
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I just watched a clip of that. It's from ET.
It's also a beer.
 
Ziggurat said:
I wish they had gone with Ouranos for the spelling.
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If only they had stuck with William Herschel's original name for it... Georgium Sidus (George's Star) after his patron, King George III


Also, "Neptune" was one of the names under consideration.
 
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smartcooky said:
Also, "Neptune" was one of the names under consideration.
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Good thing we didn’t name Uranus “Neptune”. If we had, then Neptune would have to be named something else, and “Neptune” is the perfect name for Neptune because of its blue color.
 
DuvalHMFIC said:
The first time I heard a Uranus joke, I was probably all of five years old.

Tyler: Where's he from? Uranus. Get it. Your anus?
Greg: He doesn't get it Ty.
Tyler: Get it? Your anus?
Greg: He doesn't get it.
Elliot: You're so immature!
Greg: And you're such a sinus supremus.
Elliott: Zero charisma!

I'll be 40 in a month and I still have no ***** clue what a sinus supremus is, btw.
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You shouldn't brag you have no sense of humor.
 
Ziggurat said:
Good thing we didn’t name Uranus “Neptune”. If we had, then Neptune would have to be named something else, and “Neptune” is the perfect name for Neptune because of its blue color.
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Interestingly, the sea is as much green as it is blue (sea green is actually a colour), so Neptune would have been a good name for the seventh planet, and when the eighth planet was discovered, they would need a name for it, and since it was blue (sky-blue is a colour) they could have named it after the God of the Sky.... and the God of the Sky is.......


Uranus
 
smartcooky said:
Interestingly, the sea is as much green as it is blue (sea green is actually a colour), so Neptune would have been a good name for the seventh planet, and when the eighth planet was discovered, they would need a name for it, and since it was blue (sky-blue is a colour) they could have named it after the God of the Sky.... and the God of the Sky is.......


Uranus
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Somehow, I don't think Jimi Hendrix got that memo.

"'Scuse me, while I kiss Uranus"
 
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