Mars

(To follow) Description: The following images were taken shortly after the 2005 apparition of Mars. Unfortunately, this part of Mars isn't a particularly exciting part, so there isn't much to see. Olympus Mons, the highest mountain in the Solar System, is towards the edge of the disk at about the two o'clock position, but sadly isn't visible from Earth.

Image information: Image is a composite of three images taken between 06/12/2005 19:54 and 21:19UT. Image has undergone major contrast enhancement and sharpening using a point-spread function. As a result of the wide time spacing of the images, some detail may have been lost.

Physical information: Disc diameter: 15.9", centre at long. ~190, lat. -19, south pole earthward and sunlit, phase 0.96, distance 0.587AU (88M km), altitude ~50 degrees.

Description: This image was taken during a night of broken cloud but good seeing. This is a single image taken with my digital camera through the 12-inch telescope and is, very roughly, what you could expect to see on a good night with good eyesight using the telescope.

Image information: Image taken 29/11/2005 21:26 UT, using a Sony DSC-H1 bootstrapped onto the back of the 12" telescope. Image taken at camera focal length 11mm, F/3.5, ISO-64, 0.02s exposure. Image has undergone non-linear contrast enhancement, noise removal, and sharped using a 5-pixel radius before a flip and 30 degree rotation.

Physical information: Disk diameter: 17.1", centre at long. 269.2, lat -18.9, south pole earthward & sunlit, phase 0.974, distance: 0.547AU (82M km), altitude: 51.5 degrees.

(To follow) Description: This image shows Mars shortly after the 2005 opposition. Three weeks before this image was taken, the Hubble telescope spied a dust storm near the Chryse region (see here), visible on the right-hand side of our image. Some white cloud near the North Pole can also be seen.

Image information: Image taken 17/11/2005 20:30-21:00 UT, using a Sony DSC-H1 bootstrapped to the back of the 12" telescope. A stack of 8 exposures with varying parameters was used to achieve disc contrast, then averaged with a single image contrast enhanced and sharped to bring out detail.

Physical information: Disk diameter: 18.9", centre at long. 6, lat -17.4, south pole earthward & sunlit, phase 0.993, distance 0.495AU (74M km), altitude 44 degrees.

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