Mars: Softening Detail Post-Opposition

Three weeks past opposition, Mars is visibly smaller and softer than at its peak. A bluish-white haze still lingers over the polar hood, while faint dark markings trail along the disk’s southern limb.

The video above is the same session’s raw IR-pass footage, shown here as captured — infrared light cuts through atmospheric haze that visible-light imaging struggles with, giving a cleaner look at the surface markings even as the disk shrinks. The finished LRGB composite appears further down the page.

Captured as luminance and RGB video sequences, derotated in WinJUPOS, stacked in AutoStakkert!3, and processed in PixInsight.

Processed Result