Tonight – January 5, 2017 – the moon is at or near its first quarter phase and shines close to Uranus on the sky’s dome. Uranus, the seventh planet from the sun, floats in front of the constellation Pisces the Fishes. Uranus will remain within Pisces’ borders for the rest of this year, but the moon will leave Pisces after a few more days.

With the moon waxing to full now, you’re not likely to glimpse Uranus with the unaided eye. Moonlight will drown it from view. But keep reading. We give you an idea of the location of planet Uranus in your sky, and links to detailed charts, in this post. Then, when the moon leaves the evening sky, you’ll know where to look.

First of all, notice the graceful V shape of Pisces. If you have a dark sky, which you’ll need anyway in order to see Uranus, you’ll easily make out the V of Pisces on the sky’s dome. You can star-hop to Uranus via the 4th-magnitude star Epsilon Piscium and the fifth-magnitude star Zeta Piscium. See them on the chart below?

Okay … got Epsilon and Zeta Piscium?

Now you just need to know Uranus’ location with respect to these stars, for the current observing season (June 2016-March 2017). Best place to find that is nearly always skyandtelescope.com. People with good vision – and good charts, like this one – do see Uranus with the unaided eye on dark, moonless nights.

Be sure to click into the full chart, but here’s the relevant piece of it – for finding Uranus – below.

Just remember, with the moon waxing to full now, unaided eye glimpses of Uranus won’t be likely in the coming nights.

We hope the charts on this page will help you find Uranus later!

Uranus was the first planet to be discovered via telescope, by William Hershel on March 13, 1781. At a distance of 20 astronomical units from Earth at present, this world is pretty easy to see through binoculars – that is, if you know right where to look.