What is the most distant planet you can see with the naked eye?

Either Saturn or Uranus depending on how hard you want to work at it! Here are the stats for 1996:

                         Brightness
Month              Saturn          Uranus
January            +1.2             +5.9
March              +1.1             +5.8
May                +1.0             +5.7
July               +0.8             +5.7
September          +0.5             +5.7
November           +0.8             +5.8
So, Saturn is clearly the brightness of Saturn is comparable to the brightest stars you can see in the sky. Uranus is considerably fainter and near the comfortable limit of +6.0 visual magnitudes. Saturn would hit you in the eye, but the more distant planet Uranus would take a bit of searching and a familiarity with the locations of the fainter stars in the sky, before you would spot this intruder!
Copyright 1997 Dr. Sten Odenwald
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