Mars 01-01-2010 07:50 UT

[Joel Warren]

I hope all my colleagues down under had a good New Years, and I wish you all a great 2010. My latest Mars image. Taken at about 23 degrees with a 21 degree dew point. I was actually watching the ice form on my OTA during capture. Difficult image to get, but worth it considering seeing conditions.

Joel

[Matt Wastell]

Great pic Joel.
You certainly got a great reward for the trying conditions. Thanks for sharing and Happy New Year!

[Lester]

Nice image Joel, all the best.

[multiweb]

Wow, that's a very cool shot! :thumbsup: Same to you. All the best for 2010.

[Quark]

A good result Joel, best wishes to you also for the New Year.

Regards
Trevor

[telecasterguru]

Joel,

Great image of Mars. All the best for 2010.

Frank

[alphajuno]

It's amazing to me that you're getting all of these great pictures. It's usually about 10-20 degrees warmer for me and I'm freezing. Consequently I'm not up very late either, lol. Hats off!!

[Joel Warren]

Thank you Dave. El Nino has been killing our seeing here in the states, so if looks like I have any chance at all of a decent image, I'll give it a try. Mars is at a point now to where I can stay up till 2 am local time and it be at a good elevation instead of having to get up at 4 am. But at this point I'm lucky if conditions will permit me to image once every two weeks. I believe Arizona and Florida have been having some pretty good seeing, but the central U.S. and east coast have been hit hard. Sometimes people are amazed when I tell them its normal to have blizzards with 12 + inches of snow here in the Texas panhandle where I live. We have cold cold winters, tornado outbreaks in the spring and very hot summers. Heck, I just noticed you are from Houston, so you know what I'm talking about.