Abstract
The Solar System contains many thousands of planetary bodies which are too faint to be seen by the unaided eye. All have been discovered during the last two hundred or so years. This group comprises the third and fourth largest of the Sun’s planets (Uranus and Neptune — both about 50,000 km in diameter), the smallest planet (Pluto — approximately 2000 km in diameter) and several thousand asteroids (also known as the minor planets) which range in size from a few metres to almost 1000 km in diameter. In theory both Uranus and Vesta can be located without a telescope, though such sightings are very rare.
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References
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© 1995 Springer-Verlag London
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Hollis, A.J. (1995). The Asteroids and Telescopic Planets. In: Moore, P. (eds) The Observational Amateur Astronomer. Practical Astronomy. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0389-9_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0389-9_9
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-19899-4
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