Mars near opposition on a windy night (Gerould Kern)

Contains: Solar system body or event

Mars near opposition on a windy night

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Mars near opposition on a windy night

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

This week Mars will reach opposition with Earth, its closest passage in two years.

I don't want to miss out on this event (or its conjunction with the moon). but the weather has not been very cooperative north of Chicago. Saturday delivered a rare break in the clouds, but it was windy--not very good seeing conditions. Still, time is of the essence, so I gave it a shot.

The adventure of photographing Mars reminded me of just how demanding planetary photography is. I have great respect and admiration for planetary photographers who perform miracles with these tiny points of light. As noted previously, It's an entirely different discipline than deep sky.

Astrospheric listed our seeing as "below average" trending toward "poor" but I wanted to get on the board with at least one image of Mars at opposition, so here it is. I still am hopeful that I'll get one clear, calm night while the planet is in range.

Please note: The following tables are updated every 24 hours.

Distribution of astrophotographers

This table shows the number of distinct astrophotographers who have been assigned and IOTD/TP award compared to the total number of images awarded.
	Distinct awarded users	Total awarded images
Image of the day
Top picks
Top pick nominations

Distribution of subject types

This table shows the distribution of awards per subject type, compared to the popularity of images of that subject type.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Deep sky
Solar system
Extremely wide field
Star trails
Northern lights
Noctilucent clouds
Landscape

Distribution of data sources

This table shows the distribution of awards per data source, compared to the popularity of images acquired from that data source.
	Image of the day	Top pick	Top pick nominations	Total submitted
Backyard
Traveller
Own remote observatory
Amateur hosting facility
Public amaeteur data
Professional, scientific grade data
Mix of multiple sources
Other
Unknown

The “AstroBin Image of the Day and Top Picks”, or IOTD/TP, is a long-running system to promote beautiful, interesting, peculiar, or otherwise amazing astrophotographs, with a focus on technical excellence. Learn more.

Submitted The date and time when you submitted this image for IOTD/TP consideration.	...
Views by Submitters (available since September 19th, 2023) Every image is assigned to 50% of available Submitters. In the event that at least 80% of them don't view the image before its time in the IOTD/TP process expires, it's assigned to the other 50% of Submitters and the process begins anew.
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Promotions by Reviewers When 3 distinct Reviewers promote the image, it moves on to the next stage of the process: evaluation for IOTD status.
Early dismissal Staff members have a lot of images to inspect on a daily basis, and they can dismiss images if they believe they don't meet the requirements for IOTD/TP selection. If an image is dismissed 5 times, it's removed from the process. This streamlines the process and ensures that any bias present in promotions could be overruled by other staff members.

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Mars near opposition on a windy night

Mars near opposition on a windy night

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Mars near opposition on a windy night

Mars near opposition on a windy night

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