Mars

Of all the planets in our solar system, Mars is my favorite and the one that fascinates me the most. That fascination began when I read The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury as a child. Later, during my first year in school, I had a teacher who's husband worked for Nasa and she would share photos of the planets that Nasa had taken with their various probes at the time. I remember seeing that famous picture of the surface of Mars from the Viking 1 lander and being amazed at the possibility that there could be life somewhere on that rocky landscape. I love the old drawings of "canals" that Giovanni Schiaparelli thought he saw through his telescope. I even purchased a small globe with Percival Lowell's depiction of canals on the surface.

This is one of the planets I regret not having my setup together and workflow figured out since I missed its opposition in 2022 when it was its closest to Earth. Well I missed it photographically but I was able to visually observe it with my 5" Newtonian.

I am looking forward to its opposition in 2025 which I hope to gather some good shots.

Here are the two shots I have so far of our red planet.

This was my first shot which was actually done with my 5" Newtonian and my Canon Rebel T5i (with no tracking) when I was just dipping my toes into the possibility of astrophotography. It's not the best image out there but it was my first attempt at both photographing the planet and processing the file which at the time I had no clue what I was doing.

Mars - November 23, 2022

My second attempt was later the following year when I got my 8" SCT and the planet had already crossed the meridian and was beginning to set. Again, this was early in my attempts and I still had no clue what I was doing (not that any of that has changed as of this writing). I can't remember which camera I used for this shot, but I believe I hadn't picked up the ZWO yet and this was the Canon Rebel T5i.

Mars - March 28, 2023

Mars - October 29th, 2024

Mars - December 6th, 2024

Mars - January 15, 2025

Mars - February 2, 2025