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Mars
The planet Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, reached opposition on the 7th November 2005. At opposition, Mars is directly opposite in the sky to the Sun and is at full phase. It is also at its nearest to the Earth (or thereabouts). At this opposition Mars reached an apparent visual magnitude of -2.3 and covered just 20 arcseconds of the sky.
This picture of Mars was taken five days after opposition on the 12th November 2005 at 22.01 GMT using an Orion OMC-140 Maksutov-Cassegrain Telescope and a 25mm Plossl eyepiece. The image was captured afocally using a Cassio QV-2800UX digital camera placed at the eyepiece of the telescope and the contrast and colour saturation have been manipulated in Photoshop to enhance the detail.
The most notable feature of this image is the division of the surface into a light (yellow/orange) and dark (blueish) hemispheres and this suggests that the south pole of Mars is at the 10 o'clock position. Other than that, although some structure may be hinted at, it would be difficult to identify what this is. The bright blueish rim that is seen is most likely an artefact of the combined optical system. Full observational details are given below:-
| Date: | 12th November 2005 |
| Time: | 22:01 GMT |
| Location: | Edinburgh |
| Longitude: | 3º14' W |
| Latitude: | 55º57' N |
| Tel. aperture: | 140mm |
| Tel. focal length: | 2000mm |
| Tel. f/: | 14.28 |
| Eyepiece: | 25mm Plossl |
| Tel. mount: | Gem Equatorial |
| Camera: | Cassio QV-2800UX |
| ISO: | 80 |
| Exposure time: | 1/8 sec |
| Cam. focal length: | 46mm |
| Cam. f/: | 3.2 |
© Duncan Hale-Sutton 2006