Uranus Observations 2023-2024
Introduction
During this apparition, Uranus is at opposition on 2023 November 13.
2023 August
Kevin Bailey imaged Uranus on the following dates, 2023 Aug 12, 15, 16, 17 ,19, 20, 21 and 23. On each night he was able to capture Arial, Umbrial, Titania and Oberon. He subsequently produced an animation which can be seen in the BAA web page gallery.
2023 September
Luigi Morrone imaged the planet on Sep 12, with an IR/R (>610nm) which showed the bright region over the planet’s north pole. Geof Lewis imaged the disk on Sep 15

On Sep 16, Paul Abel observing visually with a 305mm Newtonian also recorded the bright region over the north pole with a darker band further south. He also recorded the satellites Arial, Umbriel and Oberon.

The bright region over the north pole was also imaged by Peter Tickner with various filters on Oct 20 and 23 plus five brightest satellites, by Alan Snook (IR) on Nov 3,, 5and10. by Martin Lewis on Nov 6 and seen visually by Paul Abel on Nov 7 plus four satellites.

Although the satellites of Uranus are faint, the following image shows that it is possible to image at least two of them with a small aperture. This is an enlargement of the main image taken with only a 250mm F5 lens. Two stars lie p. the planet and Stellarium indicates that they have magnitudes of 10.8 and 14.1 respectively.  Other field stars can be identified from Stellarium.  However very close to the overexposed image of the planet are two fainter stars which fit the positions of Titania (Nf) at magnitude 13.8 and Oberon (Nf.) at magnitude 14.1.   A more recent observation has picked these up again. 

The bright region around the north pole continued to be visible into 2024 as shown in observations by Alan Snook and Martin Lewis on Jan 26, Paul Abel on Jan 30 and Alan Clitherow on Feb 7.

During 2024 April Uranus was in conjunction with Jupiter. Two observations are shown below.

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