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thayln

The Summer of Mars

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marssequence_farr_big.jpg

 

Mars Through a Small Telescope

Credit & Copyright: Francisco A. Rodriguez Ramirez (AstroEduca)

Explanation: How does Mars appear through a small telescope? Viewed with the unaided eye or through a small telescope, possibly the most striking part of Mars' appearance is its red color. The color derives from rust, iron oxide, which composes perhaps 10% of the Martian soil. The oxygen that rusts the surface iron on Mars originates predominantly from carbon dioxide gas, which composes 95% of the Martian atmosphere. Mars nears its closest approach with Earth in nearly 60 millennia on August 27, the red planet continues to appear larger, brighter, and a good target for sky enthusiasts. Pictured above, Mars was captured from the Canary Islands of Spain during three days in three different orientations earlier this month. Visible through the small telescope are white polar caps of water and carbon-dioxide ice, light red areas rich in lightly colored craters, and dark red areas dominated by relatively smooth lowlands.

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Havent broken out the telescope yet(darn thing has to be calibrated, the mirror is shifted so I have to fix it....still trying to figure it out, but I know I can fix it), but I hope to have it ready soon. But I have been checking the sky out...Mars is beautiful!

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Cool, I will get my telescope out. I have a mount for a camera too. Now all I need is fast film. Yes, the mount is for an SLR 35. I do not have one for a digital camera yet. I do have a scanner so I can scan the pics when they are processed. Maybe I will have some that are good enough to host.

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Argggh, one of these days I will get a camera mount... :frusty: I really want one. I would kill to have been able to take pictures of events I have seen with my scope! Especially when the "C" fragment hit Jupiter back in 1994("String of Pearls" comet or Shoemaker-Levy 9 that broke up into 21 pieces, for those who did not already know)...

 

Data, if the pictures do come out well, please share.. :assimilated:

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Awesome thing is, if it is not to stormy on Mars(dust storms) if you got a powerful enough scope, you'll be able to see the polar ice cap! :frusty::assimilated::frusty:

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Mars shines bright here in the southern hemisphere too. This post's spoilers provide with some raw pictures of the event, they are in the following spoilers and 11KB each. This link provides you with a report of tonights events and another 5 images, enjoy!

 

Click for Spoiler:

mars290803_01.jpg

 

 

Click for Spoiler:

tn_mars290803_07.jpg

 

 

Click here for my report - and more images! :dude:

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Thanks Trekzone for posting your pictures of Mars. I might try the digital camera to the scope and see what I get. I know amateurs are fiddling with their digital cameras and getting great pictures by installing fans to cool the camera and reduce electronic noise. Since I'll be borrowing the camera, I don't think I will be fiddling around with it.

 

Enjoy Mars. It's an incredible colour!

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starsinmyeyes and everyone else, those were taken with my digicam, without a telescope!! pretty nifty, theres more images on my site (link in last post)

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Panasonic DV-DS65......digital camera.....i thought so too, if your interested i can make the full 4 minutes of Mars finding (yeah or nah, itll take 6 mins!)

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Took a reasonable picture of Mars through the scope last night with a blue filter on the eyepiece. Funnily enough the image improved vastly when some high-level cloud came across and cut out more glare. :laugh: Can anyone tell me how I can post the picture here? The image button asks for a URL and I don't have my own page to host the picture.

Edited by starsinmyeyes

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