Astronomical porn! Great pictures, Dave. You have some awesome setups. I got my first images of Mars for 2022 yesterday morning; I haven't processed them yet but visually I could see distinct dark albedo features and the polar cap.
Oh, and did you hear about the spacecraft (DART) that NASA crashed into an asteroid as a test for our planetary defense against another major asteroid event? Its purpose was to deflect the trajectory enough to prevent it from reaching Earth. I heard it was a success.

 

Thanks Reggie. Astro porn rocks lol. I'm just about to take the 127 out to cool down for a potential Mars session. I saw Mars on Saturday, I could just make out a hint of the cap and some albedo features, it's not as visible as it was a few weeks ago.

https://astronomyconnect.com/forums/threads/jupiter-mars-big-mak.14064/

I would like to see your pictures. There are reports from the British Astronomical Association that there are localised dust storms on Mars now.

I heard about the DART mission. Maybe we'll all sleep better now and not have nightmares about all those Earth crossing asteroids. You don't even want to think about how many there are.

 

Had an early morning session on Mars (05:00 BST). Mars was 11.7 arc seconds wide at about 58 degrees altitude. 87.2% illuminated.



I used Baader Blue and Semi-Apo filters at magnifications of 205x and 257x. The southern pole was pretty easily discerned, as were darker albedo features in the south. The blue filter helped greatly with white features. Again, as far as I could tell there was a lighter albedo feature in the north (NPH?).

 

I envy you with your early morning mars observation.. Very nice telescopes too, I like the Mak with the bino viewer, it must be fun to use like that, for things like the planets and the moon.

Yeah very attracting setup.

I will try the blue filter on mars next time, or maybe just the Moon and sky glow, it's a blue filter, light blue.

 

I didn't use the bino. I just used two TMB clones (6mm, 7.5mm) to keep things simple. I did use the 127 Mak and the bino's once on the last Mars oppo' but it wasn't a total success TBH. Light blue filters really do reveal white albedo features well on Mars. Mars is definitely looking larger.