by Joe Stieber » Fri Mar 06, 2015 1:25 pm
I've not seen Mercury in the sky with or without any equipment. Also generally Uranus is too faint to be visible with the naked eye and can only be seen with a telescope and maybe binoculars.
Uranus runs around magnitude 5.8 to 5.9, so it's an easy binocular object; in fact, I've been spotting it with binoculars in recent days as Venus closed in on it (despite my suburban location, a relatively low altitude and residual twilight). Granted, it appears star-like in binoculars, but with a pale, non-stellar bluish color. One does need a telescope to resolve it as a disc. That magnitude also puts it within the nominal 6th magnitude limit for naked-eye visibility (although some experienced observers can see well beyond that nominal limit). I've seen Uranus a number of times naked eye and make it a point to do so every year in the months around opposition, usually from the New Jersey Pinelands, which are relatively dark, but hardly a true dark-sky location.
[quote]I've not seen Mercury in the sky with or without any equipment. Also generally Uranus is too faint to be visible with the naked eye and can only be seen with a telescope and maybe binoculars.[/quote]
Uranus runs around magnitude 5.8 to 5.9, so it's an easy binocular object; in fact, I've been spotting it with binoculars in recent days as Venus closed in on it (despite my suburban location, a relatively low altitude and residual twilight). Granted, it appears star-like in binoculars, but with a pale, non-stellar bluish color. One does need a telescope to resolve it as a disc. That magnitude also puts it within the nominal 6th magnitude limit for naked-eye visibility (although some experienced observers can see well beyond that nominal limit). I've seen Uranus a number of times naked eye and make it a point to do so every year in the months around opposition, usually from the New Jersey Pinelands, which are relatively dark, but hardly a true dark-sky location.