Filters are interesting, I remember arriving in a brick store once with that printed sheet of the Agena Color filters. The seller basically told me (politely) that it was BS and that color filters are BS.

He was very upset about that sheet.

I see results differently from the sheet but the color filters work for me on the planets, some more then others. Eventually, I would like to have higher quality 80A

 

Speaking from personal experience, colored filters have aided me in isolating Martian features, such as differentiating ground fog from clouds, when observing and sketching. I want to go through my sketches and post my results using filters. In imaging, filters are also used to bring out specific features and details which cannot be captured otherwise, such as an IR filter allowing capture of surface features during a Martian planet-wide dust storm which otherwise obscures those features. Combining the RGB and IR images I came up with an image of Mars that would have otherwise been an orange blob. Anyone making blanket statements about filters being a gimmick or useless only demonstrates their lack of knowledge on the subject.

Ed

 

Here's another good article about observing Mars: https://agenaastro.com/articles/observing-articles/mars-observing-guide.html

I remember years ago on another forum a new observer stating all he could see of Mars with his 8" Dob was an orange disk. The night before I made a very detailed sketch of an observation I made with an old 60mm long refractor I had. Hmmm...

Ed

ADDED: https://alpo-astronomy.org/jbeish/2022_MARS.htm

This is the link to the very informative article Jeff Beish writes for ALPO every Mars apparition.

Ed

 

LOL on the T-Shirt! Observing experience can often trump aperture. One sure-fire way to learn how to observe detail is to sketch. That's how I honed my observing skills.

Ed

ADDED: Sketches don't have to be fine works of art. This was pointed out to me years ago when I started and my sketches were.....

Ed

 

The attached sketches were done in 2014 with a Vixen 70mm med-long achromat. Page 2 of 2 shows what I observed through each filter, and how each one reveals specific features and details:





Hot bad, huh?

Ed

 

Mak, I'm sorry to hear about the stroke and what it did to you.

Ed

 

Interesting notes here, cool sketches @Ed D I like the idea of using real color for Mars, it produces beautiful sketches and it's also logging important information, about the color itself..

I really need to spend the time, be methodical and look at the same planet with different filters, like what you did on the page 2 of 2. Really 1 sketch per filter with good notes... yeah.

The orange filter that is in interesting choice.

I commit to do the exercice with Jupiter, soon.

Color filters are useful for the planets, I like the #11 also for Saturn following your suggestion Mak it will really contrast the cloud cover of the planet, It's one of my best color filters. The Saturn filter! #11

***
An finally last night I had a nightmare and woke up at 3:45am, believe it or not, the sky was clear and I took my 200mmx1000 Newtonian out for a Mars observation AT LAST!!! As if my subconscious woke me up and gave me the gift of a very high planet Mars in the sky and pretty good atmospheric conditions.

I'll publish that sketch later to see how it went.

 

My idea was to go with premium filters like Baader yeah, if they all are like the moon and sky glow, these will be VERY good filters. I think about it.

It's true about the speed of rotation, I hadn't thought about it really.I need some website that will show me the right face of Mars in the first place, as a starting point.

Here is my observation of Mars from last night, I am quite satisfied with it.. even if the amount of details was poor.. but considering the size of the disk, it's a success.


Note: 200x would reveal more of "C" not "A"

 

Stellarium was not very good the last time I checked.. here I have version 0.19.3 hard to tell if it's accurate.. Maybe i will check for the snap version in the next days.

Celestron app, I have no devices to run it.

 

@Mak the Night I found on the website of stellarium, an Appimage installation, it works. I compared Mars from the 1.0 Appimage vs the 0.19.3 native repository version currently installed on my computer.

It looks like both version share the same planetary engine programming.