Mars: bright & white

[jah79]

Thru my scope Mars is very bright, even a couple of months back before the current opposition nears. It also appears white and I can't make out any surface details but thru my bino's it appears red. Is this normal and will I see a difference by using a certain filter?

[Jupiter Martin]

Should be able to pick up some detail with your SW 150

[Wurzil]

Mars is definitley orange for me. Does your scope come with a lens cap that you can take the middle out of? if so try putting that on to cut down the brightness.

[pvaz]

Last time I looked it was near white too. I used my ND filter to dim it out and see some detail. The dull face was facing us so I couldn't see much, only the polar cap and the dark region around it ware visible. I used 240x.

[Prizeonion]

I also found last night that with clear skies, the surface details get washed out. I tried a few colour filters and an ND, but that didn't seem to help. The details were actually easier to see through a thin layer of cloud. Does this mean I might be better of trying to "stop-down" my scope with an apodizing mask like this: Telescope Diffraction And Apodizing Masks ?

[johnkirkpatrick]

Im looking at mars just now from dumfries in scotland and its no bigger than a really bright star for me. im using my only 2 eyepieces 20mm and 10mm looks the same through both. am a bit dissapointed i was expexting some detail. gona try see saturn later on in early hours of thursday.

[superjody]

im using a skywatcher 130 using a tal x2 and a 5mm eyepiece.

im up near manchester with bad light pollution and its a reddish colour with the ice cap in the bottom left and a slight bit of detail

[johnkirkpatrick]

im using a skywatcher 130 using a tal x2 and a 5mm eyepiece.

What is a tal x2 and would it aid my viewing?

[Chris H]

I just had a quick peek at Mars before the clouds rolled in again, it is very bright. I was viewing it at x200 and it was so bright it did appear almost white especially the rim of the planet which was kind of like a halo, diffraction spikes were also very obvious. It actually looked better when some thin cloud went past and brought the contrast down. Lots of detail visible but its gone cloudy now and I'm off to bed. Night night.

[Chris H]

What is a tal x2 and would it aid my viewing?

A tal x2 is a barlow lense which doubles the power of whatever eyepiece you put into it. For example your 10mm eyepiece is giving you x65 magnification with the x2 barlow it would be x130.

[pvaz]

Im looking at mars just now from dumfries in scotland and its no bigger than a really bright star for me. im using my only 2 eyepieces 20mm and 10mm looks the same through both. am a bit dissapointed i was expexting some detail. gona try see saturn later on in early hours of thursday.

Your scope haves 650mm focal length. That means with the 10mm you get 65x magnification (650/10).

For Jupiter/Saturn 100x is the minimum I like to use. Mars is smaller so 200x or more helps, but I can start making out features at 120x.

If you get the 2x barlow you can use it with the 10mm and get 130x which will be great for Jupiter/Saturn and allow you to see some details on Mars (it will still look tiny but will be a disk not a point like the stars).

[jah79]

Thanks for all the replies. I will try only taking the smaller lens cap off next time.

When I take pics of Mars with an SLR at prime focus and fast shutter speeds I can make out colour and faint details so I suppose cutting down on the amount of light would work.

Having never used my lunar filter before after only viewing the moon quite low on the horizon I very quickly realised the need for it when viewing the near-full moon around zenith the other night!!