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Mars is really small. At the moment is about 15" in diameter. As a comparison the full moon is 30' or 1800", so it is 1/120th of the moons size. Personally I never been a big fan of observing Mars. I have probably only once had a really nice night that coincided with a Martian opposition and all I managed to get was Syrtis M and the north polar cap. Ther are lots of good DSO's much more interesting than Mars IMHO!
Anyway if he is really determined he needs to understand that patience and a lot of time at the eyepiece is required, especially if he is going to go for higher power. To push up to 500x he will need a 2.5mm EP. I wouldn't worry about getting a super expensive one as it not get a lot of use and even cheap ones are still pretty sharp in the centre of the field.
Malcolm
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