Welcome to Mars, 2004
Sorry - this is the best I could do back in 2004, the last time I tried to take pictures of Mars at its closest approach to earth. I'm sure we've had other opportunities since 2004, but several stars have to align to even make the attempt. As distant and dim as Mars is from my back yard, even a little weather or cloud cover makes it a no-go.
But there's another chance coming up on the 12th, so I may try again. I think this was probably taken with my first digital camera, which was a Fuji point-and-shoot with a maximum 3 meg resolution and a massive 3x zoom capability. To get even this close required all of that technical capability plus way too much cropping, and it's so rough I never even posted it to go with my pictures of Venus.
We'll see if I can do any better in a few days, if the weather permits and it's not too cold or raining.. Mars will be a mere 59,703,891 miles away on January 12th, and almost at opposition to the sun, which should make it about as big and bright as it gets from here. So how hard can it be?
I know the picture is garbage, photographically, technically, but as food for thought, for imagination, it works for me. Imagine that we can see a planet 60 million miles away as Kamala might have said "With our own eyes - our OWN EYES!"
Welcome to Mars, 2004
Sorry - this is the best I could do back in 2004, the last time I tried to take pictures of Mars at its closest approach to earth. I'm sure we've had other opportunities since 2004, but several stars have to align to even make the attempt. As distant and dim as Mars is from my back yard, even a little weather or cloud cover makes it a no-go.
But there's another chance coming up on the 12th, so I may try again. I think this was probably taken with my first digital camera, which was a Fuji point-and-shoot with a maximum 3 meg resolution and a massive 3x zoom capability. To get even this close required all of that technical capability plus way too much cropping, and it's so rough I never even posted it to go with my pictures of Venus.
We'll see if I can do any better in a few days, if the weather permits and it's not too cold or raining.. Mars will be a mere 59,703,891 miles away on January 12th, and almost at opposition to the sun, which should make it about as big and bright as it gets from here. So how hard can it be?
I know the picture is garbage, photographically, technically, but as food for thought, for imagination, it works for me. Imagine that we can see a planet 60 million miles away as Kamala might have said "With our own eyes - our OWN EYES!"