A Summer of Planets: Jupiter, Saturn and Mars

I really could call July 2018 the summer of clouds.  Here in Cary, NC this July has been full of humidity, storms, and clouds.   Yet, when the clouds have parted the July sky has housed wonderful views of the planets.   In fact Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars were all lined up at the same time across the sky to view late into the night.

I was able to get my scope out this July literally in between storms and get a quick picture of each planet.  Due to high humidity and clouds rolling in it was still not the best viewing.   However Mars is at opposition in July.  This means the Sun, Mars and Earth form a straight line with the Earth in the middle.  This event is when Mars is the closest the Earth and when it also will look the brightest.  In fact Mars is the fourth brightest object in the night sky now with only the Sun, Moon and Venus outshining it.  A Mars opposition only occurs every two years so i did not want to miss this one.

The pictures I took follow the same capture and processing steps as shown in previous blog entries.  The only difference is that I used a DSLR camera to record the videos instead on the webcam type camera.  My webcam camera is only black and white and while it can give crisper images, the DSLR shows color.  Therefore these images pull in some of the color of the planets.

The equipment and software used are:

Celestron EdgeHD 8
Celestron Edge AVX Mount
Televue 2.5X Powermate
Nikon D5300
BackyardNikon, Autostakkert!3,  Registax6

Mars

First up is Mars.  Even though it closest to the Earth right now, it is still a small little object for my  scope.  This picture picks up little detail other than the planet is red. :)   If you really look at the top of the planet you can pick out a whitish/less red area.  This is one of the polar caps.  Under the polar cap you can make out a little of the darker region of the surface.   Mars just went through a global dust storm a lot of surface detail is lost even when looking under a bigger scope.

Jupiter

I missed the red spot this night, but the banding is still beautiful.  Here are two separate processing attempts.

Saturn

By the time I got to Saturn the viewing conditions were getting worse, but you can at least see it has rings!

Hopefully I can follow up with another post showing these again.  I never get tired of looking at these majestic planets and seeing how they change each time you view them.