Two Views of Mars Here are two views of Mars I captured from Star Base One on the night of April 14th. The first is a low power a star field view, showing how bright Mars is compared to the neighboring stars in the field. The second is a close-up showing the Red Planet as it appears through a medium sized (5 inch) telescope at about 250X magnification (as best as the current atmospheric conditions could allow.) The large redish area dominating the surface area is known as Elysium Planitia , the dark area to the upper left of this is Acidalia Planitia, while the darker area to the lower right is known as Daedalia Planum. The white area at the top is the Martian polar cap which is made mostly of Carbon dioxide (dry-ice). The whitish areas around the perimeter at 10, 7 and 4 o’clock are known as Albedo effects and are simply light reflections off the Martian atmosphere. ...
Posted on: Thu, 08 May 2014 05:23:57 +0000
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