~ Here comes Mars for a close encounter with Earth in 2020 ~

7/12/2020

This is my first image of Mars for 2020 and it’s already showing some detail on the planets surface with the bright South Pole looking spectacular, every two years Mars comes close to our Earth as it orbits the Sun. The date for this year’s opposition of Mars will be on the 13th October 2020. The planet is still far away so its size is very small with a diameter of only 12.7” and magnitude of -0.8 (Taken from Astronomy 2020 Australia edition)

I took this image when conditions were not very good as the planet was still low in the eastern sky and cloud was starting to come over the sky, views should get a lot better in the coming months.
That is, if dust storms don’t cover the planet like they did in 2018!

Mars is exhibiting a gibbous phase because part of its disc is not being seen fully illuminated by the Sun as seen by us here on Earth. As Mars reaches opposition the Suns light will fully illuminate its surface, just like when we see a full moon in the sky. This will be the best time for observers to view and take images of this amazing red planet.

My image was taken on the 2nd July 2020 with a Meade LX200 GPS 10 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope and ZWO 120 MC-S camera with 3x Barlow lens attached. An AVI movie with 900 frames was captured and stacked in RegiStax6 and processed in PS CS4.