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Hi Bruce, Your problem won't be any of your listed ones. Even a cheap
scope will show the rings of Saturn and the main cloud belts on Jupiter,
and the reddish brown tinge of Mars. Moon light has no discernible
effect on the planets. The planets are bright enough that your eyes
don't need any dark adaptation.
So you have several possibilities. a. You are not looking at planets, but
out of focus stars. b. You are using very low magnification, so the planets
appear very small, and you weren't looking at Mars, which has a distinct
reddish hue that's hard to miss. c. You looked at Venus when it was near
full, which would look like a white dot anyway, due to it's total cloud cover. If you don't already have one, I suggest that you download a free
planetarium program such as Stellarium, which will show you where the
planets are at any given time, so you are sure that you are looking at a planet, and remember that planets usually show little or no scintillation,
[twinkling] which helps distinguish them from stars, and also once
found with a low power eyepiece you will need to switch to a much
higher power one to make out some surface details.[assuming that
your scope is capable of resolving them].Hope this helped.
raymo
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