Mars Imaged on 29th January 2010

This is my first reasonable image of Mars. Mar was at opposition on this date, meaning it was in the oppersite part of the sky to the sun. The earth has also caught up with Mars and this date also ment it was at its closest to us on this occasion. Close still mean a whopping 99.3 million Kms away, however!

This shot was taken using my Skywatcher 200p telescope with a Tal 2x barlow lens. My Baadar Zoom eyepiece was then attached with the Canon 50d digital SLR attached to this. This contraption is then linked to my lap top and some clever russian software uses the Canons live view function to take video.

Individual video frames are then stacked to give this image which is also adjusted using photoshop.

Anyway, this is the result.