MARS OPPOSITION 2020

Location:  Saint John West, NB, Canada

Date time:  October 14, 2020 2130-2300hrs

Weather:  Mostly clear, except for smoke from a nearby pulp and paper plant, that happened to be drifting our way.  It was moving from west to south east.  Air was cool and moist, mostly still no wind, 10C with a humidity of 85%.

Attendance:  Myself

Equipment:  8" Meade LX 200 with 25mm and 19mm, yellow and blue filters.  Canon Rebel xsi with 18-55mm lens.

Objective:  To view and image a very close, big from our perspective, Mars.  Mars was at opposition the day before, which only happens every two years.  This year, however, Mars is closer than normal to Earth and rarely gets as high in our sky.

Report:

• Mars was in Pisces and very high in the sky during observing.  Over 37 degrees above the horizon, at observing time, to over 50 degrees high, at it's highest, over-night!  It appeared 22 arc seconds across, compared to Jupiter's 38 arc seconds and Saturn's 16 arc seconds.  This is a huge view of Mars, comparatively speaking!
• In the eyepiece, Mars was huge!  It was showing a faint waving line across its disk.  The wavy line showed up in the blue filter a little more, with other features barely visible as darker colored blotches, randomly place across its disk.  The yellow filter hid the line and showed no features.  
•  I couldn't get that wavy line, or any features to show up in images.
• No shooting stars or Satellites were seen.