Mars – April 13th

After too many nights of cloudy skies I’ve finally managed to get some images of the Red Planet. And almost at the maximum approach to Earth.

The seeing conditions were a bit strange, with some fine details visible at times, but with the entire disc of the planet dancing on the laptop’s screen.

Again, missing the Green filter, I had to manage only with the Red and Blue channels. Some very interesting details in the Blue channel, with a lot of clouds activity and a very bright polar cap. This was also evident in the eyepiece at 550x.

And the image with some technical details and the Red and Blue images:

Also, a small animation showing the rotation of the planet in the 19 minutes I’ve imaged it:

This is my best observation of Mars for this apparition, and hopefully not the last.

Max

(April 16, 2014)