Making the most of Mars

“Having mentioned Mars in October’s sky notes on Saturday,” says Ken Kennedy, “I have been keeping my eye on the (generally cloudy) sky in the hope of an opportunity to photograph it.

“I was quite lucky on the night of September 29/30 when it cleared and the air wasn’t too turbulent. The problem with planets is that they are very small – Mars is currently only 23 arc seconds in diameter

and its image is generally thrown about by turbulence in the air.

“The only way to get any sort of image is to take thousands of images on a video file then get software to select the least distorted images. These are then stacked, and the final result I have attached for your interest.

“The central dark area is Syrtis Major, looking a bit like an inverted India or perhaps this year more like inverted Africa. The dark areas are rather higher than the lighter areas and tend to change shape slightly from year to year depending on how the Martian wind distributes the sand and dust.

“There is a surprising amount of detail if you have a map of Mars to compare it with, but the most obvious other feature is the small southern polar cap at the bottom of the image.

“Mars will be bright until at least the end of the month but as we retreat from it, its angular size will diminish making imaging more difficult. The next time Mars is close to Earth will be December 8th 2022 but by then it will be more distant than it is now and of smaller angular diameter.”

Ken Kennedy took this photograph of the planet Mars. Read more above.