Moon / Mars near occultation (07 Dec 2022)

 Mars, Moon, Planet, Solar System  No Responses »
Dec 142022
 

Even though the occultation of Mars by the Moon was not visible in the Florida panhandle, we were close enough that it was a near miss. While this is not one of my normal occultation targets, I was able to come up with a combination of scope and camera to get both objects into one field of view. I was able to live stream about 12 minutes of the Moon closing on Mars before clouds ended any possibility of watching the rest of the event.

Moon / Mars

This is one frame of the streamed video. I was pleasantly surprised that surface detail was still visible on Mars with the camera gain set as low as it was to prevent overexposure of the Moon.

 Posted by at 23:39

Mars (23 Nov 2022)

 Mars, Planet, Solar System  No Responses »
Nov 242022
 

The seeing tonight was much steadier than the last time I took a look at Mars. This of course led to much finer detail being visible. Once again, the clouds covering the northern polar ice cap are very obvious. You can identify several additional surface markings using the Mars map on the PTO web page. The central meridian is 1.8° but you must remember the image is south at the top unlike the map. Right now Mars is coming out of its winter season with the spring equinox just around the corner on the 26th of December.

Mars
[(V)L:2361×0.6ms; R:1857×1.4ms; G:2311×1.9ms; B:1190×3.9ms]

 Posted by at 12:43

Mars (08 Nov 2022)

 Mars, Planet, Solar System  No Responses »
Nov 102022
 

Mars is finally rising above my tree line a little earlier in the morning. The seeing has been fairly poor the last couple of days but it has settled down enough to get some useful pictures. The prominent blue feature on the northern limb of the planet is seasonal cloud cover over the north polar ice cap. This cloud feature is known as the north polar hood and is often seen forming in Mars’ early autumn and may last until late spring.

As usual, south is at the top. If you want to identify any of the surface features using a Martian map, the image’s central meridian is 179.2°.

Mars
[(V)L:1530×0.5ms;R:1756×1.2ms;G:1445×1.9ms;B:34×4.7ms]

 Posted by at 16:05

Mars (24 Jul 2022)

 Mars, Planet, Solar System  No Responses »
Jul 262022
 

Mars is just rising early enough to clear the trees and still be in relatively dark skies. As usual, this image matches the view in the telescope with south at the top. Mars just passed its winter solstice on the 21st of July.

Mars [(V)TR:2061×0.2ms; TG:2062×0.34ms; TB:2060×0.28ms]

Click here for a full explanation of the exposure data.

 Posted by at 13:29

Mars (24 Dec 2020)

 Mars, Planet, Solar System  No Responses »
Dec 252020
 

The increasing distance to Mars, high Christmas Eve surface winds and a strong jet stream leads to a blurry, marginally acceptable image of Mars. Even so, you can still make out Syrtis Major. The clouds forming the north polar cap are visible and there may be a hint of the shrinking southern polar ice cap. As usual south is up in this image.

Mars
[(V)R:6865×0.26ms;G:6681×0.37ms;B:6105×0.80ms]

 Posted by at 15:15
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