Mars Closest Approach

Tonight marks the closest Earth will be to Mars as we pass each other in orbit. Apparently this will also be the closest the two planets will be until the mid 2030s.

Mars only comes by every two years, so I'm doing my best to see it as much as I can while it's here.

I set my camera to a gain of 175, a shutter speed of 15ms, and took a 3 minute video.

I stacked the top 20% of frames in autostakkert and sharpened with wavelets in registax.

This has as big and detailed as Mars will get for me this time around. Mars is halfway through our night sky, and my map of Mars is halfway done. Hopefully I can finish it in time!