Celestron Mars Opposition 2003 Home Page

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Mars Links

Planetary Society

Mars Exploration Rover Mission

Nasa's Mars Exploration Page

Mars Rover Link (space.com)

History of Mars Exploration

Mars Facts

Mars has a diameter of 6,794 km
(4,221.6 Miles)

Mars has a mass of 6.4219e23 kg
(1.41579e24 Pounds)

Mars is 227,940,000 km
(141,500,000 Miles)
from the sun

Mars has an orbital period of 686.98 days.

The rotational period for Mars is 24.6 hours

Mars is the fourth closest planet to the Sun and the seventh largest overall.

Mars' orbit is very elliptical, causing a mean temperature on Mars of approximately -85 degrees Farenheit

Mars is well-known for "The Face," a hill, in the nothern plains of Mars, with the appearance of an extraterrestrial face.

Mars is the planet that is considered the best candidate (besides Earth) to harbor life.
Because of the seasonal color changes on the planet's surface and the popular belief of irrigation canals being built by intelligent beings was present after astronomers thought they viewed lines across Mars' terrain.

The first spacecraft to visit Mars was Mariner 4 in 1965

Babylonians studied astronomy as early as 400 BC, they called Mars Nergal - the great hero, the king of conflicts.

In the 1500's Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe made surprisingly accurate calculations of the position of Mars 200 years before the telescope was invented.

In 1719 Mars was in opposition, and closer to Earth than it would be until this year (2003). The brightness in the sky caused panic.

Mars BOOKS

Non-Fiction

Mars Observer's Guide: A Practical Handbook for Amateur Astronomers
Neil Bone

The Case for Mars
Robert Zubrin

The Hunt for Life on Mars
Donald Goldsmith

Mars: The Lure of the Red Planet William Sheehan & Stephen James O'meara

Water on Mars
Michael H. Carr

Lowell and Mars
William Graves Hoyt

Mapping Mars
Oliver Morton

On to Mars
Frank Crossman

Mars
Paul Raeburn

Mars Mystery
Graham Hancock

FICTION

First Landing
Robert Zubrin

The Fifth Man
Randall Ingermanson

The Martian Race
Gregory Benford

Mars Crossing
Geoffrey A. Landis

Under the Moons of Mars
Edgar Rice Burroughs

Red Mars
Kim Stanley Robinson

The Mars Project
Wernher Von Braun

Mars Movies

2000

Mission to Mars

1996

1995

Project Shadowchaser III

1990

Martians Go Home

1989

Lobster Man from Mars

1986

Invaders from Mars

1979

The Martian Chronicles Parts I-III

1977

The Alpha Incident

1968

1966

Planet of Blood

Mars Needs Women

1964

The Wizard of Mars

Santa Claus Conquers The Martians

Robinson Crusoe on Mars

1959

The Angry Red Planet

1958

It! The Terror from Beyond Space

1955

The Conquest of Space

1954

Devil Girl from Mars

1953

The War of the Worlds

Invaders from Mars

Abbott and Costello Go to Mars

1952

Red Planet Mars

1951

1950

1938

Flash Gordon: Mars Attacks the World

1924

Aelita: Queen of Mars

Mars Images from Celestron Telescope Users

Would you like to share your Mars images?
If you have astrophotography that you are proud of taken with any Celestron products, please send them via e-mail to:
marsimages@celestron.com

Please click on the images for a higher resolution picture.

From Joel Warren:

08-23-03 01:15
Location: Amarillo, TX
Equipment: NexStar 8i, ToUcam Pro, 2x Celestron Ultima Barlow, IRB filter
Alt-Az
600 frames stacked and processed with Registax2

Mars image from Joel Warren

From Jason Fournier:

Image of Mars taken with a web cam and a NexStar 11 GPS at f/20. It was taken on Aug 9th from Griffith Park Observatory.

Mars image from Jason Fournier

From Oldfield So:

I'm very happy to see that Celestron is collecting images from
the excellent scope Celestron has made.

Here're some of mine, will keep updating once I've captured
new images:

http://oldfield.uhome.net/star/photo/c8/mars.html

Feel free to include it in the Celestron website, since I'm a
very proud owner of my C8.

Mars image from Oldfield So

Mars image from Oldfield So

Mars image from Oldfield So

From Daniel D.:

I'm very new to astrophotography having just purchased a digital camera little more than 2 weeks ago. These are my first efforts in astro picture
taking....

About the Mars pics:

Celestron Celestar 8
Canon PowerShot A70 digital camera
15mm Plossl/ 2.5x Barlow
338x at the eyepiece

Stacked about 10-15 images using Astrostack (I'm still
learning it!). Took 2 sets of images 2 hrs apart to
show planet's rotation.

Mars image from Daniel D.

From Francisco A. Rodríguez Ramírez:

Date: 15-08-2003
Place: Cabreja Mountain (Vega de San Mateo, Gran Canaria) Canary Islands - Spain

Telescope S/C Celestron 8 d:203mm F:2000mm + barlow x2 + webcam toucam pro
Each image made with 500 frames

From Fredrik Silow:

I got my NexStar in February. Thanks for the greatest of telescopes!

Mars image from Fredrik Silow

From Jose Luis Lamadrid Gutierrez:

Celestron C-8 Webcam Philips-Vesta-Pro

Sum of 800 frames taken with "Registax and Adobe Photoshop" from Teruel in Spain.

Mars image from Jose Luis Lamadrid Gutierrez

From Greg Mort:

"Here are a few MARS images made using your new C-11 CGE Telescope. Note the subtle markings in the 'Mare' areas, Fantastic! This scope can really deliver!

From Maurice Valimberti:

This image was taken with "80's vintage C14 tube assembly & a webcam" from Melbourne, Australia.

Mars image from Maurice Valimberti

From Damian Peach:

These mars images were "obtained during an 8 month observing run in the Canary Islands using a CM-1100 while imaging Mars, Jupiter and Saturn for the BAA/ALPO/IOPW."

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dpeach78

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