Most of the planets can easily be seen with the unaided eye. Small telescopes will start to bring out more detail, especially on Jupiter and Saturn. The biggest problem with viewing the planets is the 'seeing' (or the movement of the atmosphere). This is what makes the stars appear to twinkle. The advatage of using a CCD camera to image the planets is that you can get a snap-shot of good seeing. By taking lots of short exposures, (less than a second) some very good results can be obtained.