In August 2003 Mars at opposition was only 0.37 AU (34 million miles) from Earth. This was a great opportunity for amateur astrophotography. I was lucky that, on the night of 26 Aug, there was a clear sky and reasonable 'seeing'.
This image was made using a Toucam webcam on an 8" LX200 with a x2 Barlow at 5 frames-per-second and minimal gain. The best 150 visually selected frames of the video were aligned and stacked in Registax. Maximum entropy deconvolution was applied using Maxim DL and the image finalised in Painshop Pro.
The centre of the image is about 310 degrees Mars longitude and the 'handle' shaped feature is Sinus Meridiana and Sinus Sabeus.
Sadly the next opposition will not be until Jan 2010 and Mars will be twice as far away - nevertheless it is always an interesting and challenging target.
