Mars - 2 years later

[Camelopardalis]

Folks,

The weather has been pretty unstable around these parts for months and doesn't seem to be letting up, but a couple of nights ago, on what seemed to be an average night (but still better than recent history!), I put the trusty SCT out for a peek.

By coincidence, the face on view wasn't wildly different from one of the shots I had taken last time around. The recent shot features Valles Marineris and Acidalia more centred on the disc, while in the earlier shot Mars had rotated more rightwards.

The dust storm really shocking - the previous high contrast volcanic features are mere shadows of their former selves.

The poles (north up) appear more icy than before. Even looks as if dust has been deposited on the more-favourably-pointed-at-us southern polar region.

Cheers,
Dunk

[astronobob]

Neat & tidy image there, Dunk, I was out the recent nights and the jet stream was rather bad here, improving somewhat now tho.
You have done a fantastic job here, well done :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Camelopardalis]

Thanks Bob :thumbsup: the jetstream has really been messing with us :sadeyes:

[John Hothersall]

This is very depressing Dunk, I had great plans but does not seem worth bothering now. The night of 18th July was reasonable despite forecast but I was doing deep space instead. Bad seeing during both June and July so far for us in SE QLD.

Your image though looks pretty reasonable considering, some say the storm will last all season?

John.

[Camelopardalis]

John, yeah I've read conflicting reports...one person at NASA predicted it was dying down and might take few weeks to settle, another saying it could rage for months :shrug: