Mars on August 25, 2020 (JDJ)

Contains: Solar system body or event

Mars on August 25, 2020

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

I had my first close up look at Mars of the 2020 apparition on the morning of August 24, 2020. What a sight! The conditions were great with above average seeing and transparency. Mars was ~18 arcsecs in diameter, 90% illuminated, and blazing a glorious orange hue at magnitude -1.6. Using Winjupos ephemerides and the Sky&Telescope Mars profiler, I was able to identify a few areas visible in the image. The south polar cap is the stand-out at the bottom of the image, with a hint of the northern polar hood visible at the top of the image. The dark feature to the right of the central meridian is Sinus Meridiani. To the left of the central meridian is Aurorae Sinus (which reminds me of a series of upward pointing fingers). Rotating into view from the left is Valles Marineris. Looking forward bigger and brighter Mars viewing as we head towards opposition in October.

Imaged with a C8 Evo, ZWO ADC, Baader UV-IR Cut filter, and ZWO ASI224MC. Imaging train was configured to give ~F/20. Image capture using Firecapture with gain set at 300 and an exposure of 3 ms. Stacking in AutoStakkert3 (best 30% of ~36,000 frames captured over 240 seconds). Color balancing and Wavelet sharpening in Registax6. De-rotated and combined 10 images in Winjupos.

Suburban Astrophotography
Solar System Imaging
Schmidt-Cassegrain Telescope (SCT) Imagers
Cloudy Nights

Mars

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