I finally have a photo of Mars.
I started doing astronomy right after The Big Mars Opposition of 2003. By the time I had my astrophoto mojo working, Mars was a dim and tiny speck lost in the glare of sunset. So I missed the 2003 opposition.
In 2005, my astronomy life was pretty torn apart; between college and moving to the new house and hadn’t built the observatory yet, I really didn’t get a lot of sky time. So I missed the 2005 opposition, too.
By 2007, I was doing pretty well at DSO photography, and simply never got around to shooting Mars. Scratch the 2007 opposition.
The 2009 opposition was shaping up to be the same; I’ve been watching Mars set later and later and just never got around to taking my shots.
But, with the success of the collimation last weekend, I really wanted to give the C9.25 a try, and since planetary photography is less equipment-intensive than DSO photography, Mars seemed like a great choice.
The seeing was horrid. Cloud banks rolled in constantly for the first hour or so I was out. There was a nearly-full moon just a few degrees away, and I was manually focusing (focus knobs; how quaint). I admit to being a bit rusty at planetary photography, too.
But, a first shot of a new object is something to treasure. So here it is:
This is through the C9.25, stacked 2x and 3x Barlows, with the NexImage. I was running at 5fps (needed as long of an exposure as I could get at f/60), and captured in Craterlets, stacked in Registax 5, tweaked in PS CS.
My eyes are trying hard to bring this picture of Mars in to focus. Really cool picture with a sheen.
I realize this was taken a couple++ of years ago so I will now go back to current day 2015 and watch for the next photo of Mars to appear from the Ad Astra Observatory
Planetary photography takes a fundamentally different set of skills than deep sky photography. I was at the top of my game for long-exposure photography in 2010. I was very rusty at planetary. I’m now rusty at everything, but it’s coming back.
You grok, though. I was really getting good back in 2010, 2011. Then I went on hiatus for awhile. I hope to pick up right where I left off.
There will be more planets from the observatory. Saturn is pretty this year, and, to your point, Mars will be back, too. Stay tuned.