The attached Mars animation was taken at Conyers Farm Observatory on 2014-04-21 at 03:10 UT CM12 with a Canon T2i camera. If was processed in AutoStakkert2, Photoshop and Movie Maker.
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and rotates in 24 hours 37 minutes. I took three images of Mars spaced 6 minutes 30 seconds apart and assembled them into a movie. The movie shows how much Mars rotates in just 13 minutes. The movie plays forward and backward to accentuate the rotation. Also included is a Mars map from WinJUPOS software from the same date and time of the movie.
The north polar ice cap of Mars can be seen at the 11 o’clock position. Various dark markings on the surface are also visible.
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Visual observations dominated planetary observation for most of history. Now ‘off the shelf’ cameras not even designed for planetary studies easily exceeds human vision. We can only wonder what will be possible with the cameras of tomorrow.
Starry Nights!
