[Quark (Trevor)]

Hi All,
Imaged Mars this this morning, my first attempt for this apparition.
At 4:59 CSST Mars was only 20 degrees above the horizon. My observatory is designed with a shutter at the bottom of the observing slot so that no extraneous light can enter my scope. Normally I don't open it, however to image Mars I had to open it completely to be able to just bring my scope to bear on the target.

The image was very difficult to focus as it was fairly unstable due to the low altitude of Mars. I have posted 1 of the 2 images captured. The radius of the disk of Mars this morning was 3.6 arc sec's.

The North Polar icecap is visible in this image. The CM for this image is long 193.9 degrees. The dark feature protruding up from the North East is the Mare Acidalium region and the smaller dark feature to it's West is the Nilokeras region. The dark feature extending from the North Polar region is Mare Erythraeum.

Thanks for looking
Regards
Trevor