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Viewing Mars
After a long period of being unable to observe due to the weather and access to my telescope, I had a run of nights where the seeing was good and the moon had not risen (between easter and ANZAC day), and I was excited by the prospect of seeing Jupiter, Mars and saturn at a reasonable hour.
While I had some really lovely views of Jupiter (saw the Great Red Spot) and Io occultation, and some surface features of Saturn and it rings, Mars was just a pink, featureless disc, and very bright. This was viewing at about 50 degrees or more altitude, and with an 8mm delos through my 120mm refractor. I tried adding a 2x power mate - but the seeing was not quite good enough for that to be worthwhile. I wasn't really disappointed until I read another thread saying they could make out the polar caps easily, through an 80mm refractor at x150 magnification.
Any tips on what I could try to improve the view?
Luke
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