Hi all,

On Dec. 28th I met my friend Nicola and we had a session on Mars with
his own Orion 250mm newtonian featuring optics which left something to
be desired.

Seeing mainly poor with a fair window lasted enough to grab the 3 RGB
streams. The small image scale allowed a fast exposure (1/30th sec.) and
a low noise (less than 10dB) to better freeze the turbulence. The Iris
drizzle (2X) worked beatifully indeed! I didn’t expect such a result!

But as always happens, the boring side is facing me whenever I grab Mars
under acceptable conditions. So, the B image is much more interesting
than R, you can see there the 3 lined up orographic clouds over
vulcanoes and the isolated Olympus cloud on the right.
Also, notice the completely dissolved NPH making the thiny NP with its
dark collar popping up nicely.

Sorry, not yet translated, please read the Italian version! That’s the picture, though:

Hi all,

After 15 very poor nights, I could finally have a new challenge vs. the
God of the War.
A fair seeing together with a good transparency all together (a rare
occurrance here) allowed me to match colors as noticed to the eyepiece.
Please, notice how many hues are depicted there: from the yellowish
airborne dust over Hellas up to the gloomy red of Aetheria. I’m fully
satisfied with this color rendition.

The bright arc running aside on the left of Nodus Alcyonis is odd
indeed. It looks like dust because also visible in the G image. I tend
to exclude an artifact because the contrast there isn’t that huge
(expecially in the G image) and the more contrasted Sinus Gomer falls in
the red flat Aethiopis mare with no similar artifact.
The dark patch in the NPH close to the morning limb I suspect it’s an
artifact.

Hi all,

Eons were passed since the last time I could have some acceptable
stability here.
On this morning I could break my deep sky activity to give Mars the very
first try since 2005!
Despite its huge altitude, here it looks like a maddening bean!

Notice the conspicuos NPH with a darkening/weakening over the polar cap.
Nu dust activity noted on this longitude.

Hope I could have…more to follow.

P.S. As a courious coincidence, hunting has opened here on the same day!