Mars

About the object

Mars, Earth's nearest neighbour outward, a planet with a thin atmosphere, polar caps and dust storms that sometimes cover it entirely. Its appearance depends heavily on timing: every two years and a bit Earth catches up with it, and then the disk is several times larger than the rest of the time. In a small telescope during those weeks the dark continents and a white polar cap can be seen.

Apparent size in the sky: 4–25″.

How it was shot

Everything here was shot with a DWARF Mini smart telescope from a balcony in a city in Ukraine: light-polluted sky, only the eastern half of it visible, and a roof overhang that cuts off the south. Mars was observed over 1 night (in October) in 1 session, 200 frames with exposures of 33.333 ms. For the Moon, the Sun and the planets the telescope records short video and the sharpest frames are stacked, so a few good minutes of steady air matter more than hours of exposure.

Mars in the night log: 4 October.

How it went

Only one session so far, at thirty-three milliseconds per frame, long before opposition, so the disk is tiny. It is more a record that Mars is reachable from the balcony than a portrait of the planet: the device cannot resolve details on a disk this small. The real series waits for the weeks around opposition, when the disk will be several times larger.