I had a quick look at Mars this evening around 8:30pm, mars was around the 60 deg mark.
It was my best view yet, but only for a few brief minutes as thee image started to boil, anyway for a short while it was a lovely view ( x166 ) the clouds around hellas and the small south polar cap ( possibly cloud ? ) were lovely and clear to see, Syrtis major was also very clear, when i came in i told my wife that i saw a lovely dark area at the top and centre and it looked jut like Africa.
Anyhow just thought i would share this with you as its not often that i am able to get a good view, especially over these last few weeks.
Its a real shame that, for whatever reason, the conditions changed as i was really wanting to try my 6.5 mm ep which would give me x230, oh well another night maybe but i am very happy with what i saw tonight, brief as it was.
I had a similar nice and rare view of Mars tonight. It only peeked through the clouds from time to time, but the seeing was good enough for 360x (that's as far as I've got eyepieces for). Now the clouds are mostly gone and the seeing is back to ordinary again.
I've got 360x in my 18 at the moment flitting between Mars and Saturn in between clouds here in Perth, it's not too bad I can occasionally glimpse the distinctive bite out of Meridiani by Schiaparelli Crater on Mars.
I have often heard it said that Mars is a difficult planet to view and that you will need high mag, but when conditions are reasonable i have generally had nice views and only at x 166 ( condition have not as yet allowed me to go higher )
Maybe i have jut started in astronomy atba good time concerning mars ?
Yes, amazingly that is through intermittent cloud and the near-full moon only a few degrees away. Here's another shot - a finer frame selection (50 best). Not sure which is better...
Yep your images confirm what I'm seeing, the "bow shock" feature of Margaritifer Terra area in front of Meridiani is quite distinctive in the eyepiece. Good night for me learning some Martian geography
Your second pic looks a bit sharper, like you i was a little worried about how close mars was to the moon tonight, never looked at it that close to the moon before but i was really surprised that it did not seem to impact upon my view of the planet.
