Three Stormy Planets

A few nights back I managed to get some nice images of the three planets Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn, which are now nicely positioned in the evening sky. The biggest surprise was the development of major storms on Mars and Saturn. As usual, I used a 36cm aperture Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and a QHY183c camera. The conditions were only fair, so there was a little bit of loss of detail.

Actually, I'm planning on buying a TV Powermate 2.5x Barlow lens with STEEM. This will enable me to get slightly better images, but of course, as soon as I decide to power down a little the price of STEEM falls - blame me :( !

Mars

First, of is Mars which is still a few weeks from it’s closest from earth. When watching the planet live on the computer screen, I was a little disappointed in how blank the planet was. At the time I put it down to atmospheric “seeing” but even after the images were processed the planet looked surprising bland. Perhaps I should have been paying a bit of attention to the news, as it seems a major dust storm has kicked off on Mars! See here for more information from http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/martian-dust-storm-2018/ . Anyway, here is the captured image from June 12, which shows a prominent polar cap (south pole) and the effects of raised dust which have obscured detail on the planet.

Poor old Mars lander Opportunity is currently hunkering down in sleep mode due to low power from lack of solar power recharging. Hopefully, it can get a charge again when the storm subsides and then reboot.

Meanwhile on Saturn

Meanwhile, Saturn is experiencing a storm of its own with this bright cloud feature visible near the planets southern pole. Here is an image of the planet and the storm (near the top middle of the planet) from June 12. It may not look like that much at this scale, but this storm is about the size of the earth.

^{Image Credit: Author}

For a closer view of a Saturnian storm, I have included this image made by the Cassini spacecraft in Feb 25, 2011. This is many times larger than the earth and certainly larger than the storm currently on the planet. These features seem to appear every few years or so.

^{Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute}

One for Jupiter

Lastly, here is Jupiter on the same night. One of it’s Moons is casting a shadow on the planet, and because the images used to make this photo were made over several minutes so the shadow is blurred. As in normal, Jupiter displays a complex cloud belt system, festooned with numerous storms.

^{Image Credit: Author}

I hope you enjoyed those images, all taken from my backyard in Brisbane. My schedule is a bit tight in the next few weeks but I hope to have some fresh articles in mid-July.

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