Planet Hunt!

JUPITER - King of the planets!

First of the four 'Gas Planets'. Shot in October 2011, this giant planet is obvious in the night sky.  It takes 11.86 years to circle the Sun and only need about 10 hours to make one 'earth day'.  Its atmosphere is composed of hydrogen and helium gas and strong east-west winds in the upper atmosphere are responsible for pulling these climatic features into dark and light stripes.  The picture below was taken in November 2011.

Looking through the scope, one can clearly see the four moons revolving around the big planet.  This is my first encounter of Jupiter from my new telescope, what an awesome experience!

January 2012

MARS - The Red planet

I actually spotted this red 'orb' with my naked eye thinking that it was just another 'paper lantern' since it's Chinese New Year in late January.  But no, it's Mars. By 10pm (+8:00 GMT) Mars is already up at 40˚ altitude; and it's easy to spot - it's bright red.  Because of its 'red' looks, it is named after the Roman god of war.

Mars takes around 2 years to orbit the Sun and its 'day' is a little more than 24 hours.

SATURN - The father of Zeus (Jupiter)

Second of the Gas planets and is most popular for its rings.  The same night I located Mars, I tried my chance of locating Saturn also, so I waited till 1 am.  Unfortunately a huge cloud cover dominated the skies. And there was the Moon.

I tried again a week later on February 5th between 12 am and 2 am, Saturn was sighted with its rings tilted at 15˚.  What a sight!  Through my scope lens it looked so clear and bright - looked unreal.  But there it was.

Saturn has no solid surface.  It is surrounded by layers of gas and traces of water. The gases comprises of metallic liquid hydrogen, liquid hydrogen and helium.  A vicious mix!  It orbits around the Sun and on itself right the same as Jupiter's.

And last, but not least....

VENUS - The brightest of them all.

It is sometimes called 'Earth's sister planet' because of their similarities in size, mass and structure.  Though its name suggest a more 'feminine' character but Venus does hide a dark secret underneath its deceiving looks.

Its atmosphere is 90 times greater than Earth's, meaning on its surface, we would be crushed.  Much akin to 1km below the surface of Earth's oceans.  While much of Venus' atmosphere is packed with carbon dioxide and lots of sulfur dioxide on the surface, this makes Venus the hottest planet in the our solar system!  One 'Venusian' day, is 243 (Earth) days - one of the slowest of all planets - and that is why the surface facing the sun is hot like 'hell', as scientists would say. Venus orbits the Sun in about 7 months. 

I call it the 'greenhouse effect' planet.  Venus shine so bright is because of its cloud-based atmosphere like ours and the elements that lurk underneath.  Looking through the telescope, Venus looks pale and featureless, almost serene.  In actual fact, the true colours of this planet are reddish-brown.

Photos of the surface of Venus by Russian and Nasa's lander.  The probes only lasted less than 30 mins then transmission was lost.  It was probably crushed by the Venusian atmospheric pressure and heat. 

Venus and Uranus are the only two planets in our system that have a 'retrograde' orbit round the Sun.  While all the planets turn in a counter-clockwise direction, both these planets turn clockwise.

In all, it was worth it.  It took me 4 months to be able to photograph Venus properly, as of now, its an 'Evening star'.  It was difficult to photograph towards the setting Sun, plus it was always cloudy, being so close to the Equator.

My next goal is to catch Uranus and some asteroids that are wondering in the skies above me, waiting to be 'blogged'!! Lol!!!