Whether considering planetary exploration or observing, two planets are often neglected because they are too far away, too costly to travel to, or too dim and tiny to observe through a backyard telescope. Uranus and Neptune may seem too distant for good views, but with clear, moonless skies in the dark countryside along with the finder charts that accompany this article, it should take little effort to find them.

Uranus (magnitude +5.6) and Neptune (magnitude +7.8) are dim because they orbit the Sun at 1.8 and 2.7 billion miles, respectively. In the dim depths of the outer Solar System, daytime sunlight is no brighter than a clear evening sky on Earth shortly after sunset. Both planets are about four times larger than Earth, slightly over 30,000 miles in diameter, and have thick atmospheres that are completely cloudy. The small amount of methane (3%) in Neptune’s atmosphere absorbs the red component of sunlight and scatters the blue creating a beautiful blue planet. Uranus does not appear as blue because it has a little less methane (2%) and unlike Neptune it has a ruddy haze which shifts its color towards the green giving it a turquoise hue. These colors are dramatic whenever they are near stars of contrasting colors.

Uranus is entering the beautiful realm of the Pleiades-Hyades region in Taurus making it easier to locate with several bright stars to aid star hopping. Uranus will be very high up at midnight around opposition which is a bonus for steadier seeing. Neptune is below the Circlet in Pisces and a bit more challenging, but there are several stars nearby to assist locating it. Neptune will be at opposition on September 20 while Uranus will be at opposition on November 16. Rising at sunset and setting at sunrise, both worlds will be up all night on these dates. They will remain in the evening sky for the rest of the year and into early 2025 with Neptune fading into the evening twilight by February and Uranus by April.

Given a night of steady seeing, a small telescope should be capable of resolving the discs and revealing the colors of these remote worlds; however, both planets are too far away to observe cloud detail or moons unless the telescope has an aperture of at least 16 inches. Uranus is 3.8 arcseconds across and Neptune is 2.4 arcseconds across.

The Barton-Brown Observatory (BBO) at the Waterville Public Library houses a research grade, 16-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and its superior optics in the relatively dark skies south of Utica’s bright city lights consistently reveals Uranus as a true turquoise globe and, during nights of perfect seeing, two of the five largest moons, Oberon and Titania, are visible. The other three moons of Uranus: Umbriel, Ariel, and Miranda, are dimmer and have yet to be seen; all five moons shine at magnitude +14 to +15. Neptune is a tiny, chilly-bluish globe with Triton shining nearby most of the time, but quite dim at magnitude +13.5.

Using a telescope of at least 16” may increase the chances of seeing, but more likely imaging, faint detail on Uranus and even Neptune. Both planets remain active with Uranus displaying a bright polar hood as its north pole points nearly straight towards Earth and Neptune large bright and dark spots. Advances in technology has made it possible for amateurs to capture images of these storms on both planets once reserved for the pros with giant telescopes. With the highest magnification that seeing will allow, there is a reasonably decent chance of photographing cloud detail. Uranus and Neptune may seem distant, but an orbiter mission to Uranus has finally been approved, and maybe someday one to Neptune, hence, the attitude of these two worlds being too distant to explore has changed, along with the attitude of observing them through our humble telescopes.