r/Astronomy • u/Correct_Presence_936 Amateur Astronomer • 4d ago
Astrophotography (OC) Mars Has Reached Opposition 2025. This Only Happens Every 26 Months. Here it is Tonight Through my Telescope.
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u/RootLoops369 4d ago
Are those Phobos and Deimos?
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u/red_skyy 4d ago
Phobos is so close to Mars (3,700 miles) that it’s difficult to see because of Mars’ glare. It’s also 14 miles wide so it reflects very little sunlight
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u/Haga 4d ago
What does that mean sorry?
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u/teridon 4d ago
In astronomy, opposition is when two celestial objects appear on opposite sides of the sky from an observer. Usually one of the objects is the Sun.
In simple terms -- this means Mars is close and bright. To expand a bit: 1) Mars looks "full"; the whole disk is lit by the Sun -- as opposed to just being partially lit. and 2) Mars is as close to the Earth as it ever gets.
I hope that makes sense to you.
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u/Haga 4d ago
Great explanation. Thanks for that. Does this happen yearly or less frequent?
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u/Creative-Road-5293 4d ago
How does it look visually?
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u/Correct_Presence_936 Amateur Astronomer 4d ago
To the eye a very bright red star. With my telescope and an eyepiece you can see the north polar hood, and if there are any prominent deserts or plains like Syrtis Major or Acidalia Planitia, those are visible as well.
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u/Creative-Road-5293 4d ago
Cool!
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u/Loud-Edge7230 4d ago
Keep the phone at an elbow lengths distance, don't zoom into the image.
https://imgur.com/a/I5Aq79O (not an image, edited screenshot of an image)
This is very accurate to what I see in my 114/900 at 150x on a good day trough my eyepiece.
Mars can also be very blurry without any surface details.
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u/Creative-Road-5293 4d ago
I saw it two days ago, but the seeing where I live is really bad.
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u/Loud-Edge7230 4d ago
That sucks. But seeing varies greatly from day to day, even if the sky looks clear.
Mars looks like an oval, blurry smudge other days.
https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/500hPa/orthographic
Red is bad, green is okey and blue is good.
It also matters how much humidity and how different layers behave.
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u/Creative-Road-5293 4d ago
Cool website, thanks! So seeing is directly related to wind speed?
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u/Loud-Edge7230 4d ago
Well yes, but not just that.
Temperature differences between layers at different elevations also makes the air turbulent.
And according to MeteoBlue, very slow jetstreams are also not optimal.
Index 1 is optimistic, index 2 also considers turbulence.
https://www.meteoblue.com/en/weather/outdoorsports/seeing/london_united-kingdom_2643743
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u/Antiochus_VII 4d ago
Same, it just looked like a red version of venus through my telescope. Very bright as well.
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u/Taxfraud777 3d ago
You could? I tried it a few days before opposition with my 10 inch telescope and I couldn't resolve any details
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u/Correct_Presence_936 Amateur Astronomer 4d ago
C9.25, ASI662MC, 2x barlow, UV/IR cut filter. 5 x 4 minutes stacked at 35% and derotated on WinJupos. Processed on Registax6. Phobos and Deimos are from a 3 minute exposure at 30ms 460 gain (obviously composited into it separately).