Uranus and Neptune

Uranus and Neptune: A Side by Side Sketch of Apparent Size

Uranus and Neptune

24” f/3.17 Steve Swayze

495x

Vancouver, WA

September 2025

This was my first time observing the distant planets Uranus and Neptune in the 24” f/3.17 Steve Swayze. I was floored when I saw them in the eyepiece, because the disc was so cleanly defined and quite a bit bigger than I was expecting. There just the spurious disc, with no concentric rings. I was absolutely stunned. I had to sketch them!

I’ve seen the two in my 10” some years ago, before I put fans on it, and they were quite faint, almost star-like. In the 24”, wow! Surreal and unreal at the same time. I could not believe it. I could not resist the temptation to sketch what I saw.

For this sketch, because of the simplicity of the objects at high magnifications, I modified my approach. I went back and forth between the 2 planets at 495x to get a good idea of the difference in apparent size between the two, then immediately opened my garage door using a garage door opener in my pocket, then I looked for two fender washers with central holes of differing sizes that matched what I saw in the eyepiece, then quickly sketched the two in the garage under a desk lamp set to the lowest setting.

I decided to sketch both planets on the same page, to give a viewers a good idea of what they actually look like. Transparency was not great, but seeing was good, so no subtle graduations in color could be observed and my sketch reflects this.