This image was taken a few days before opposition when Mars was 99.595% illuminated and had an apparent size of 20.2 arc-seconds. Because of the eccentricity of our orbits, however, this was on the day when we reached our closest approach to Mars. Mars reached opposition on November 7, 2005. This opposition was not as good as the historic event in 2003, but nevertheless was a very good opposition. For people in the northern hemisphere, Mars was much higher in the sky, and offered better views in some cases because it could be seen with less atmospheric blurring.
This image of Mars was taken from my frontyard in Scottsdale, Arizona, using a ToUcam web cam on a FCT-150 refractor with a Televue 4x PowerMate. The focal length was about f28. The images were aligned and stacked with Registax.
Constellation: Aries
RA: 03h 02m 22.5s Dec: +16d 15' 29"
October 30, 2005
Image by Sid Leach
Scottsdale, Arizona
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