Astrophotography Adventure – Mars Attempt

In my prior astronomy post, I described my latest attempts at imaging Saturn and was able to produce at least one decent image from those attempts. So, my next try was to see what I could get for Mars.  Mars reached its nearest approach to Earth earlier this month, so it is probably one of the best times to get a really good image. But, because of its closeness, it is also incredibly bright so I am having real trouble with the images being overexposed.  I’ve made a number of attempts but really have been less than satisfied with not only my images but what I can see visually with the Starblast 4.5. Any clear surface detail like Syrtis Major or the polar caps have eluded me, which is pretty disappointing. So far, this is the best image I’ve produced using a video stacked with Registax and a little post-processing with GIMP.

And here is the original video:

I’m thinking of getting some planetary filters, red for Mars and yellow for Saturn, which will hopefully improve both the images and the visual observations of these two planets.