Uranus's 84.1-year orbit around the Sun will carry it to its furthest point to the Sun – its aphelion – at a distance of 20.10 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 Fairfield, at the moment of aphelion it will not be readily observable since it will be very close to the Sun, at a separation of only 19° from it.
A chart of the path of Uranus across the sky in 2009 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.
The position of Uranus at the moment it passes aphelion will be:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| Uranus | 23h37m40s | 3°11'S | Pisces | 6.0 | 3.3" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
The sky on 26 Jun 2024
| The sky on 26 June 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
74% 20 days old |
All times shown in EDT.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Warning
Never attempt to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at an object close to the Sun. Doing so may result in immediate and permanent blindness.
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
| 27 Nov 2008 | – Uranus ends retrograde motion |
| 01 Jul 2009 | – Uranus enters retrograde motion |
| 17 Sep 2009 | – Uranus at opposition |
| 01 Dec 2009 | – Uranus ends retrograde motion |
Image credit
© NASA/Voyager 2