Uranus
Published by This article is a brief summary of the different nations and scholars worldwide that have contributed to researching the seventh planet. Each spent years of patient observation and years of painstaking recording of coordinates to produce what the non-scientist sees as just one number in a single table in a massive tome of such tables.
international research on the seventh planet
England — John Flamsteed, earliest recorded sighting in 1690
France — Pierre Lemonnier, observed at least twelve times between 1750 and 1769
England – William Herschel (German who moved to England)
Russia — Anders Johan Lexell was the first to compute the orbit of the new object
Germany — Johann Elert Bode described Herschel’s discovery as “a moving star that can be deemed a hitherto unknown planet-like object circulating beyond the orbit of Saturn”. Bode concluded that its near-circular orbit was more like a planet than a comet.
Voyager 2 — The atmosphere of Uranus has often been called bland, and even boring. This epithet is a matter of bad timing. Voyager 2’s flyby (which gave us our highest resolution pictures) occurred at peak southern summer, when we had a view of only the southern half of the planet. Historically, this season is when Uranus has appeared blandest in the past.
Hubble — Hubble has since shown fascinating bright cloud features and banded structures in the atmosphere of Uranus.
note the shadow of a moon on the face of Uranus
the moons of course move because they are in orbit
Uranus Rings pre-Voyager visualization of the rings of Uranus viewed from passing comet (dated concept)
© 2011 by Don Dixon / cosmographica.com
Spooky. It is almost as if Uranus was staring back at us. Who knows? Maybe it is.
The one on the left is true color (greenish) while the one on the right is false color created by wavelength filters used to bring out detail — such as the spooky resemblance to an eye.
Japan — National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, Subaru Telescope images
Europe — European Southern Observatory images
Belgium — Jean Meeus predicts occultation of Hipparcos star #106829 (alias SAO 164538) by Titania in 1999
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