65 replies to this topic

[JOEinCO]

Dave:  You've got an "L" missing at the end of your link....html.

[astronz59]

I am no beginner but never a hardcore enthusiast. In 40 years I have never seen Mars as anything more than a feature-less orange blob. I've had countless scopes. Ten inch SCT - just a blob. Eight inch Dob - Yawn. Six inch Mak - Same crap different day. Four inch APO - waste of money. Last night, with a 96mm FCD1 doublet refractor, I easily observed a shadow transit on Jupiter and caught fleeting glimpses of the offending moon. Next I swung over to Mars. Poke out my eyes man - Yawn again!  Whats the trick on Mars. Before I die I want to see something on Mars. Tell me what to buy.

Agree with the comments about imaging, but there's nothing like seeing it with your own eyes IMO. I use blue and green filters...

[havasman]

Before I die I want to see something on Mars. Tell me what to buy.

I really don't think purchasing power is what you need. For the recent lunar occultation I took an AT80ED on a small tripod and manual alt/az mount up to a local city park with nighttime soccer games going on under the lights @ 250 meters away and had a fine session watching the little planet draw near the moon. I mostly used an A-T 7mm UWA and 5T6. The polar cap was apparent and the major features showed well in dark umber and lighter orange-ish rust. Syrtis Major was not too hard to make out as it was well placed. Mars' color became more dramatic as it approached the moon.

 

I was able to show some of the features to a cyclist that stopped by to see what was up. He'd never used a telescope before but he had grown up in rural Mexico so he knew what was beyond our urban view. I encouraged him to be seated at the scope on my observing chair and take his time to see. It took him a minute and then bang! there it was. He described planetary detail.

 

Patience, relaxation and an understanding of the fleeting nature of the good bits may be your key.

 

And a better year for observing Mars will very absolutely certainly help A LOT. Sean Walker wrote about timing Mars observing in the Sept. '24 Sky & Telescope and pointed out that the BEST shot this year isn't great, when the planet's max subtended angle has been 14.6" on 1/12/25 compared to 7/27/18 when its angular size was 24.3". He lists max possible as 25.6". So be ready for the next favorable opposition and read up on your quarry so you know what to expect to see and you will be more likely to. And be prepared to be patient and take what you are given as it comes.

Edited by havasman, 28 January 2025 - 10:48 PM.

[Dave Mitsky]

Dave:  You've got an "L" missing at the end of your link....html.

I corrected the link.

[JoeFaz]

Syrtis Major and the polar cap are visible even on mediocre nights...

Agreed. These are fairly easy for me in my AT80ED and I do exceedingly little planetary observing, so obviously I'm and even less experienced Mars observer.

 

I agree with most everyone else about patience. At first it might look like mush, but after a time broad albedo features and polar caps make themselves apparent.

[rgk901]

I will also agree Mars is though.... but last week had the best view in my 5 year career with a 72mm f/6!! lol


polar cap blinding, shading had excellent definition, nice steady image was using a ~3mm at ~143x wasnt huge but very nice image.

couldn't believe it...so next day tried same and... mush! haha

prior also tried 5/6/10 newts.. only time I had another great sight was like 4 years ago in my 5"... Jupiter/Saturn often see them quite well.. Mars..not so much

[12BH7]

Planetary is a learned art. Patience is the main factor and training your eye to pick up details. 

 

Only this year have I been able to identify any features on Mars. I also prefer to use about 200x, only because the atmosphere doesn't support using it in my area at this time.

Edited by 12BH7, 29 January 2025 - 09:38 AM.

[Keith Rivich]

Planetary is a learned art. Patience is the main factor and training your eye to pick up details. 

 

Only this year have I been able to identify any features on Mars. I also prefer to use about 200x, only because of the atmosphere just doesn't support using it in my area at this time.

And persistence. You can go out a dozen times and get cruddy views until that one magical moment happens. Then you spend the next 20 years trying to recreate the magic!

[Refractor6]

And persistence. You can go out a dozen times and get cruddy views until that one magical moment happens. Then you spend the next 20 years trying to recreate the magic!

  Or you might have to wait 20 years or so while your scopes are in storage going from rental to rental till you finally move out of the big city to your own place in the boonies to get the unforgettable detailed view of Mars like I had in my 120 F/7.5 Apo last night.

 

Last time I had a view like this of Mars was back in 2003 I suspect. Some things do indeed take time and patience....

[Dave Mitsky]

The next close opposition of Mars will occur in 2033. 

 

https://earthsky.org...from-2018-2033/

 

In 2035, an even closer perihelic opposition will take place.

 

https://alpo-astrono...h/2035_MARS.htm

[KI5CAW]

You need: really good optics... At least six inches of aperture. ..and perfect seeing, at least intermittently.

So far this season, Mars has been an orange blob no matter what scope I used. But last night I got lucky, a short window of steady seeing that enabled me to use 360X on my 8" f/8. Mars was suddenly full of detail. For about 15 minutes, then the clouds moved in.

Mars is the most difficult of all targets. It is intensely bright, its oppositions are short, it shows a tiny disk, and has low contrast surface markings. I suspect your problem is not equipment but observing conditions. Keep trying, some day you will be surprised.

[Nankins]

You need good optics, typically a moderately sized telescope such as a 6" or an 8", good atmosphere conditions, good altitude on Mars' part at the time you are observing, and yes, don't just stop by for a quick look.  Give it some time when you reach the planet. It does depend on Martian weather (sand storms, etc), and also having prominent ice caps helps with orientation.  

 

You should be aware that the first things you will notice about Mars will be the differences between light and dark regions and the ice caps.  The albedo doesn't actually always correspond to higher or lower altitude, so once you actually see low albedo (darker) regions, check a Mars map once, twice or even three times to help identify any features.  

 

You also need to observe around opposition.

[epee]

My favorite color filter for observing Mars is the Brandon CCM30 magenta filter.  Unfortunately, it's threaded for Brandon eyepieces and Dakin Barlows and requires an adapter for standard 1.25" eyepieces.
 

https://agenaastro.c...30-magenta.html
 

I also use Wratten #21 orange and Wratten #80A blue filters and a Baader Moon & Skyglow Filter when observing the Red Planet.

I use the Brandon Magenta and Salmon as well. I purchased filter cells from Scope Stuff and swapped the Brandons filter into those.

 

I'm not proud. I'll cruise the Amazon "telescope filters", and if I find a cheap set with decent cells, threaded on both sides, I'll buy them just for the cells.

 

I've also found some interesting variations on color shades in the cheap stuff, but nothing I'd trade the Brandons. I also like the GSOs for Agena; good bang for buck.

[Tony Flanders]

This may or may not be obvious, but nobody has said it so far within this thread:

 

One of the biggest problems with Mars for observers at mid-northern latitudes is that Mars is near the southernmost point of the ecliptic for its close approaches. During the current opposition Mars rises about as high as it ever can for us northerners, but it never came closer than 0.61 a.u. (57 million miles or 91 million km), at which point it appeared 15" across, just 1/3 Jupiter's apparent diameter.

 

By contrast, during its historic close approach in August 2003, Mars was 0.37 a.u. from Earth and appeared 25" across, with an apparent area almost three times bigger than it was last December. But it was in southern Aquarius at Dec -16, meaning that it never rose higher than 32 degrees at my latitude of 42N.

 

As luck would have it, six weeks after Mars's closest approach in 2003, I traveled to Chile, where Mars appeared nearly overhead. Even though Mars had shrunk well below 20", I got a better view of it from Chile than I had when it appeared largest from my home in Massachusetts.

 

Another problem with this opposition for us in the northeastern U.S. is that the seeing has been pretty consistently poor ever since Mars reached opposition.

[NinePlanets]

Yes. For we northerners, winter oppositions are better than summer oppositions even though the planet is smaller in diameter. Just getting it up above the turbulent horizon means more than closest approach, in my book. There are, of course, happy mediums.

[TayM57]

I've had my best views of Mars over the last two nights with bare glass. No coated mirror. I've been star testing my 17.5" f/3.4 and Mars has been nothing short of excellent. Surface detail is crisply defined, and the polar cap stands in stark contrast to the rust surface of Mars. Of course, I have 5 fans on the 17.5" so it was very well acclimated. Jupiter is also excellent, but a coated mirror shows the fine color granulation and the mottled poles better. 

 

Incredible. If you you have a bare glass mirror in a scope, give it a try.  

[aatt]

Patience and persistence wins the day with Mars observing. In CT the jet hangs above us most of the time. Last week i just sat there for a couple of hours and every couple of minutes Mars would pop! In between those aha moments were mottled blurry features that were useful and kinda intriguing. Every now and then it would look like three or four oranges balloons almost aligned boiling away. Nothing useful or good when that happens. Multiple observing attempts help you “ learn to see” the surface features. Its like observing pushups training you to take advantage of even mediocre moments of seeing.

Edited by aatt, 30 January 2025 - 02:34 PM.

[NTR180]

I've tried multiple times this season to get a good view of mars, but the seeing has been mush lately.  This thread inspired me to try again last night.  It was way past my bedtime but well worth it.  The seeing was pretty darn good last night and I was able to push 350X with the C11.  I saw detail in Mars I'd never dreamed of seeing before.  It was really exciting.  Also got a nice view of Jupiter, the GRS and a moon shadow transit.  

[treadmarks]

I've also never had big success with Mars. I've been able to see Syrtis Major but that's about it. In the past month, with Venus at elongation and Mars at opposition, Venus has so far won the nightly east/west duel with more detail seen than Mars.

 

It recently occurred to me that Mars does in fact rotate pretty quickly and you're not always going to be looking at the same side of the planet. This has been a problem for me when trying to see the GRS on Jupiter. According to the maps there are sides of Mars that are mostly low contrast details so you could just get unlucky on a specific night. Also when I started this hobby, the first Martian opposition was cursed by a massive dust storm.

 

But mostly I think the issue is how small Mars is. The fix for something being too small is magnifying it, but I can't just slam magnification when my seeing is never great. And my biggest scope is 8" which is not very big. The past few oppositions have not helped with any of that. For those reasons I've not been too excited to look at Mars... Until now. With my Venus goals accomplished, I need to give the other Earth-adjacent planet its due.

[TayM57]

But mostly I think the issue is how small Mars is. The fix for something being too small is magnifying it, but I can't just slam magnification when my seeing is never great. And my biggest scope is 8" which is not very big. The past few oppositions have not helped with any of that. For those reasons I've not been too excited to look at Mars... Until now. With my Venus goals accomplished, I need to give the other Earth-adjacent planet its due.

It's the very high surface brightness + small apparent size that makes it difficult for observers, and this is compounded by optics that aren't cooled. Mars looks much better in my uncoated 17.5" f/3.4 than it does in my coated 10" f/5.6. But Jupiter looks better in my coated 10" f/5.6 than it does in my uncoated 17.5" f/3.4.

[Tony Flanders]

It recently occurred to me that Mars does in fact rotate pretty quickly and you're not always going to be looking at the same side of the planet.

Yes, just as with Jupiter it's well worth checking which features will be visible when you're observing. And remember you only get really good views of about a quarter of a planet at a time -- the stuff that's near the limbs suffers badly from foreshortening.
 
Syrtis Major is by far the most prominent feature, not counting the polar caps and hoods. But there are other fairly prominent albedo markings, like Mare Sirenum.
 

But mostly I think the issue is how small Mars is. The fix for something being too small is magnifying it, but I can't just slam magnification when my seeing is never great. And my biggest scope is 8" which is not very big.

Small size plus very low contrast -- that's what planets are all about. Eight inches is ample to show a wealth of detail on Mars when the seeing is good, but nothing helps much when the seeing is poor.

[NinePlanets]

Here is a little sketch I did during the opposition of 1988 showing Mars' rotation over about 5 hours. This was done using my older 8"F/20 DK Cass in poor to fair seeing, FWIW.

 

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[NinePlanets]

Another at one day past opposition. There is plenty to see in an 8".

 

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[NinePlanets]

FWIW, Thee is plenty to see with a 3" F/15 refractor. You just have to be patient and learn to SEE.

[treadmarks]

It's the very high surface brightness + small apparent size that makes it difficult for observers, and this is compounded by optics that aren't cooled. Mars looks much better in my uncoated 17.5" f/3.4 than it does in my coated 10" f/5.6. But Jupiter looks better in my coated 10" f/5.6 than it does in my uncoated 17.5" f/3.4.

I don't think brightness is the issue. I looked at Venus and Jupiter on the same night and I was pretty happy with the views I got. They're the brightest, but they're also the biggest. I've been observing under my porch light so my eyes don't get dark adapted, that's bad for planets.

 

If I were to name another issue, I think it's because there's actually a lot going on with Mars and I don't know what I'm looking at yet. That's one of the cool things with this hobby - you look at things unlike anything you've ever seen before. It's been noted that once you recognize something, it becomes easy from that point forward. Right now I think all the many details are manifesting as visual noise, especially when combined with poor seeing. The brain is a factor in the visual system and it can't make sense of anything when it's so small.