dipper@utastro.UUCP (Debbie Byrd) (03/12/86)
You may manage to glimpse the planet Uranus around now. More -- after this. March 12 Mars and Uranus The planet Mars rises between 1 and 1:30 a.m. this month. It's east of due south when dawn breaks -- a reddish "star" -- pretty bright -- fairly near two other bright objects, the planet Saturn and the red star Antares. Tomorrow morning, Mars is very near another very faint object, the planet Uranus. You may be able to use the brighter planet Mars to locate the fainter one. Mars and Uranus are now in the same field of view of binoculars. You can see Mars easily with just the eye -- but Uranus is one hundred times fainter than Mars right now. Even so, Uranus would be visible to the eye now, too -- if you were standing under a very dark sky -- under the most ideal observing conditions. To see Uranus, you'll probably need some optical aid -- at least, a pair of binoculars. Again, tomorrow morning, Mars and Uranus will be in the same field of view of binoculars. They'll both look like stars -- Mars red -- and Uranus greenish or bluish. It so happens that this opportunity to see Uranus comes on the anniversary of the planet's discovery. On March 13, 1781, William Herschel first noticed the disk of Uranus while using a small telescope. At first he didn't know what he'd found -- he thought he'd discovered a comet. The truth was much more exciting. Uranus was the first new planet discovered in recorded history -- a totally unexpected world in space -- now passed by one of our spacecraft! Script by Deborah Byrd. (c) Copyright 1985, 1986 McDonald Observatory, University of Texas at Austin