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In this Discussion
- AstralStroll March 2012
- John_Brady March 2012
Why do some planets look better than others?
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Hi,
Like most people I have been taking advantage of the visibility of some of our planetary neighbours. Jupiter looks good, wiht the four Galillean satellites easily visible along with cloud banding on Jupiter. Saturn likewise with the rings clearly visible along with Titan. Venus and Mars, on the other hand, appear somewhat disappointing? Am I being greedy and expecting too much from my current equipment?
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Hi AstralStroll, Jupiter is the biggest planet in the solar system and so has a larger angular diameter, as is Saturn the next largest planet.
Venus is covered in a thick atmosphere, so no surface detail to see. Mars is a small planet, quite a bit smaller than Earth, so Mars is never huge in your scope. But with good seeing and after a time of observing, detail can be seen on Mars as well as its polar caps. -
Hi Betelgeuse,
Sounds like I need to persevere a bit more with the smaller planets. I will make sure I dont neglect the bigger ones though as I could never get bored at seing them.
I look forward to many more discussions.
