This was explained by Engineer Majid Abu Zahra, President of the Astronomical Society in Jeddah Governorate
On Monday, November 13, 2023, the planet Uranus will reach opposition with the sun in Earth’s sky at 08:12 PM Mecca time (05:12 PM GMT). It will be at its closest distance to our planet during the year, and its disk is completely illuminated by sunlight, which is the best time to observe it.
The phenomenon of opposition to Uranus occurs whenever the Earth passes between the sun and the planet, and it must be made clear that what is meant by Uranus being at its closest distance to the Earth is according to astronomical standards only, as it is actually 2.7 billion kilometers away from our planet, which means that Uranus is still far away.
Because Uranus is in opposition, it will rise with sunset and reach the highest point in the sky at midnight and set with sunrise the next day. The moon will be present in the sky in the waning gibbous phase one day after its full moon, which will cause the faint lights in the sky to be obscured.
It is known that when one of the outer planets is in opposition, it is at its peak brightness and in its best conditions, but as for Uranus, its apparent brightness will be (+5.6), so it will be like dim stars to the naked eye, and its diameter will be only 3.8 arcseconds, but this is enough to see it in the form of a small foggy ball of Through high-powered telescopes and even through small, well-made telescopes.
To try to see Uranus with the naked eye, the observation must be from a dark location far away from the light pollution of cities, but it can be easily seen through binoculars as a faint point of light, provided that the observer knows its location using an application.
Attached photo: Uranus with a 12.5-inch Newtonian telescope, a ZWO 120mm camera, a Baader IR-Pass Filer HWB 685nm filter, and processing in Photoshop.
