Photo taken July 20, 2018. What is it?

[ekim25251999]

The evening of July 20, 2018, was a misty night sky. I noticed a bright orange light in the southern sky, nothing else was visible.  I don't have a telescope, I used my camera, with a 600mm lens attached to take photos, then enlarged them on my computer. Attached it what I photographed, what is it?  It looks like Jupiter to me, am I wrong?

[paul mc c]

Could be an out of focus Mars...or as you say Jupiter

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi @ekim25251999 and welcome to SGL.

What time did you take the photo?

My guess is that it is an out of focus Mars or a sky lantern 'thingy' launched at a celebration event. If it is Mars, then I think it still should retain a spherical shape. Jupiter would appear a pale cream colour.

Download a copy of Stellarium and that will confirm what you saw. Best of all it is free! ...(unless you download it for a smartphone/iPhone).

[newbie alert]

Looks more like Jupiter.. mars would of been after midnight in the south..

Are you in the UK?

[lenscap]

Did you take more than 1 photo?

if so are they identical or does the shape change?

[ekim25251999]

I took a series of shots, they all look the same. Photo is probably out of focus. I was using a Nikon 750 camera with a 600MM zoom lens. Turned off the auto focus, and tried manual focus, but as the moon was not visible I had nothing to judge the focus. It was just a glowing orange dot.  It was the only thing visible in the sky at that time, I guess due to the mist, but it was a bright glow, that's what got my attention. Maybe being out of focus caused it not to have a spherical shape. It stayed in place for at least 30 minutes, as that how long it took me to get my camera set up, on tripod, and take the shots.  I took photo's of the moon the other night and was able to focus and got some really great shots.  Mars was visible, it was a bright pale orange and much small than what I shot on July 20th.

[PaulB]

It's Mars.

[Tim]

48 minutes ago, PaulB said:

It's Mars.

If it was later in the evening, I agree. Mars is extra red and large and blobby at the moment due to its low altitude, very bright. The pic is out of focus as you say, it would be a tiny dot with that lens.

[ekim25251999]

I have attached the original photo, before enlarging on computer. As I said it was shot with a 600mm telephoto lens.

[Stub Mandrel]

Could be Jupiter, but usually low-res images of Jupiter show two dark bands. This is a drizzled stack of many images taken using a Nikon bridge camera at 1000mm which increases the resolution and much improves the clarity:

 

[ekim25251999]

Attached are photo's I took, with the same camera and lens, the night of July 27th.  I was able to get a much better focus, as I had the moon to focus on. Mars at the time was to the lower right of the moon. This was about 10:00 pm. EST.  As you can see, the photo of Mars looks nothing like I photographed on July 20th.