© NASA/Voyager 2

Uranus at solar conjunction

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Outer Planets feed

Objects: Uranus
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The sky at

Uranus will pass close to the Sun in the sky as its orbit carries it around the far side of the solar system from the Earth.

At closest approach, Uranus will appear at a separation of only 0°39' from the Sun, making it totally unobservable for several weeks while it is lost in the Sun's glare.

At around the same time, Uranus will also be at its most distant from the Earth – receding to a distance of 19.43 AU – since the two planets will lie on opposite sides of the solar system.

Over following weeks and months, Uranus will re-emerge to the west of the Sun, gradually becoming visible for ever-longer periods in the pre-dawn sky. After around six months, it will reach opposition, when it will be visible for virtually the whole night. A chart of the path of Uranus across the sky in 2043 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.

The position of Uranus at the moment it passes solar conjunction will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
Uranus 09h19m10s 16°18'N Cancer 3.6"
Sun 09h18m 15°41'N Cancer 31'33"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 29 Mar 2024

The sky on 29 March 2024
Sunrise
06:50
Sunset
19:35
Twilight ends
21:22
Twilight begins
05:04

19-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

79%

19 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:08 14:11 21:13
Venus 06:27 12:10 17:53
Moon 23:41 04:07 08:24
Mars 05:52 11:07 16:22
Jupiter 08:18 15:35 22:52
Saturn 06:11 11:38 17:05
All times shown in PDT.

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

20 Apr 2043  –  Uranus ends retrograde motion
27 Nov 2043  –  Uranus enters retrograde motion
08 Feb 2044  –  Uranus at opposition
24 Apr 2044  –  Uranus ends retrograde motion

Image credit

© NASA/Voyager 2

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