I was able to find Uranus this past Saturday evening because the sky wasn’t as hazy as it had been. I keep daydreaming about buying a Celestron telescope the next time I’m down in Bangkok, possibly a six-incher, the popular NexStar 6SE. But, then I start thinking about how often I would use it: probably not much.
At this time of year the skies are at their clearest, but even now there’s a large amount of haze from pollution that destroys the possibility of seeing faint objects. Later, the rainy season sets in and most nights are very cloudy or overcast. I don’t think I’d get much use of a telescope. For now I’ll stay with my binocs (but, you never know).
Saturday night, the sky was fairly transparent, so I was able to see 6th magnitude Uranus with the binoculars, even though I didn’t wait for my eyes to become dark-adapted. Right now, it’s above Venus in the evening sky and fairly easy to find by star-hopping from the brighter planet. Here’s the evening sky, using a screen capture from my planetarium software, Stellarium.
And here’s a closeup of the view in my binocs. The star at the bottom of the triangle, to the right of Uranus is 7th mag., and I was able to make it out also, so the clarity was pretty good.
Here’s hoping for more clear skies.