Mars.....Still a white disc.

[Cloudwatcher]

Braved the cold for a while last night as the skies were clear and there was very little wind. I say clear,there was some high flecks of cloud but on the whole the seeing was pretty good.

Mars was still within the grasp of the orange devils to the East but very bright and through the eye piece appeared pale although more detail was visible than the last session. Nowhere near the definition seen in the images on the forum but more 'dark' patches could be seen against the bright background surface.

Thought I'd try for an image so fitted the 350D to the Mak and took several frames at varying exposure lengths to be combined in Photoshop. Whilst doing this later I pressed Auto Levels on one combination and the result look very much like an EP view I had been seeing,although much larger of course. I though I would post a copy here to show what I mean and would be interested to hear if it resembles what other observers have seen. A more saturated version is included for comparison.

Cheers

CW

[MikeP]

That's what I saw last night CW. I'm colour blind, but not enough to fail to notice the difference between a red looking visual and a white telescope view. I was only using the ED80 though, not sure how it would have appeared in the C11.

Mike

[trevboyd]

That's pretty similar to what I saw last night, CW. I could see a hint of dark markings on the surface for the first time, which I was quite pleased with. It feels like its too bright to see any real detail - I read another post elsewhere on SGL that a variable polarising filter can help with that, but I don't have one. I have to admit to being slightly disappointed with the view of Mars through a 'scope - my first year with one.

Going to try some imaging of it anyway though, probably both 350D and webcam to see how I get on.

Trev

[jcm]

I would say a web cam is your best bet for Mars. Focus is critical , and with Mars jumping about its not easy. If I take 2000 frames only about 300 or so are used. Also to get a reasonable image scale you need to operate at least at F30 ( F40 to F50 best).

John

[geoff_k]

I agree with John. Those images aren't bad under the circumstances, but a webcam would be ideal.

Mars is never an easy target and I think I'm right in saying this will be one of its closest approaches for a while. Hve to wait until 2016 or 2018

[FLO]

... I pressed Auto Levels on one combination and the result look very much like an EP view I had been seeing

Autolevels searches the image for white, black and neutral grey points then uses them to set overall colour, tone and contrast. When an image doesn't contain all three it can produce some unusual results.