{"id":80337,"date":"2025-09-23T06:05:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T06:05:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/80337\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T06:05:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T06:05:05","slug":"the-sky-today-on-tuesday-september-23-neptune-at-opposition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/80337\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on Tuesday, September 23: Neptune at opposition"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tThe solar system\u2019s most distant planet reaches opposition in Pisces, located within the same binocular field of view as brighter Saturn.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"501\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/NeptuneOpposition.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tNeptune lies within the same binocular field as Saturn, to the ringed planet\u2019s northeast. Although Saturn is readily visible to the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope are needed to see more distant Neptune. Credit: Stellarium\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Neptune reached opposition at 9:00 A.M. EDT, rendering it visible throughout the night.<\/li>\n<li>Neptune, at magnitude 7.7, is not visible to the unaided eye but can be located 2.7\u00b0 northeast of Saturn using optical aids; both are observable with binoculars or telescopes.<\/li>\n<li>Observed through a telescope, Neptune&#8217;s disk appears 2\u201d wide at a distance of 2.68 billion miles (4.32 billion kilometers) from Earth, exhibiting a blue-gray, star-like appearance.<\/li>\n<li>Saturn&#8217;s proximity facilitates the identification of Neptune due to a lack of similarly bright stars in the immediate vicinity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The solar system\u2019s most distant planet, Neptune, is at opposition this morning at 9 A.M. EDT. Like Saturn, it is visible all night, passing highest in the hours around local midnight.<\/p>\n<p>The easiest way to locate Neptune is to find Saturn, the brightest point of light in the southeastern sky around 10 or 11 P.M. local daylight time. At magnitude 7.7, Neptune is not visible to the naked eye but can be located with optical aid just 2.7\u00b0 northeast of Saturn. The pair is visible together in binoculars, or you can zoom in on the individual worlds one at a time with a telescope.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Neptune\u2019s disk now appears 2\u201d wide, thanks to the planet\u2019s huge distance from Earth of 2.68 billion miles (4.32 billion kilometers). Through a telescope, it should look like a \u201cflat,\u201d blue-gray star. There are no stars of similar magnitude close nearby, so the planet should be relatively easy to pick out, especially given its proximity to Saturn.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sunrise:<\/strong>\u00a06:49 A.M.<br \/><strong>Sunset:<\/strong>\u00a06:55 P.M.<br \/><strong>Moonrise:<\/strong>\u00a08:36 A.M.<br \/><strong>Moonset:<\/strong>\u00a07:33 P.M.<br \/><strong>Moon Phase:<\/strong>\u00a0Waxing crescent (3%)<br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 12 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">For a look ahead at more upcoming sky events, check out our full\u00a0<a style=\"box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 87, 138); transition-duration: 0.04s; max-width: none;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/tags\/sky-this-week\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List The solar system\u2019s most distant planet reaches opposition in Pisces, located within the same&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":80338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,2209,133,2210],"class_list":{"0":"post-80337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-observing","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-sky-today"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}