Uranus's 84.1-year orbit around the Sun will carry it to its closest point to the Sun – its perihelion – at a distance of 18.28 AU.
In practice, however, Uranus's orbit is very close to circular; its distance from the Sun only varies by about 9.9% between perihelion and aphelion. This means that the difference in the amount of heat and light it receives from the Sun between aphelion and perihelion is extremely small.
Finding Uranus
Uranus's distance from the Sun doesn't affect its appearance. From South El Monte, at the moment of perihelion it will become visible at around 21:22 (PDT), 33° above your western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then sink towards the horizon, setting 3 hours and 57 minutes after the Sun at 00:07.
A chart of the path of Uranus across the sky in 1966 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.
The position of Uranus at the moment it passes perihelion will be:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| Uranus | 11h11m10s | 6°03'N | Leo | 5.5 | 3.8" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
The sky on 22 Sep 2025
| The sky on 22 September 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1% 1 day old |
All times shown in PDT.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.
Related news
| 23 May 1966 | – Uranus ends retrograde motion |
| 29 Dec 1966 | – Uranus enters retrograde motion |
| 13 Mar 1967 | – Uranus at opposition |
| 28 May 1967 | – Uranus ends retrograde motion |
Image credit
© NASA/Voyager 2