IMAGING FOR SCIENCE: THE INNER AND FAR OUTER PLANETS
Make your images of Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune more valuable to science.
Our ongoing guide to giving your astrophotos scientific value continues with a look at some of the more difficult-to-capture planets at the extreme inner and outer edges of the Solar System
F or this instalment of Imaging for Science we are looking at five planets that give a somewhat lesser return for amateurs than Mars and Jupiter. That’s not to say that observations or images of these worlds are any less important, it’s simply that getting decent results from Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune can be quite challenging.
For example, in the case of Saturn, its greater distance and more subdued appearance lessens the detail that can be recorded compared to its inner neighbour Jupiter. But with care and dedication, each of these worlds has the potential to supply a lifetime of interesting results.
In many ways, advances in amateur imaging have opened up new territory that wasn’t possible to explore a few years ago. The use of specialist filters has played a major part here, allowing more detail to be extracted as well as providing higher contrast views under certain conditions, such as in daylight for the inner planets, Mercury and Venus.
Planets Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune may not show the dramatic changes evident with Mars and Jupiter, but careful and methodical imaging will still reveal subtle changes that are just as scientifically relevant