I've come across several threads on various forums exactly like this. We all see pictures of Mars taken from powerful telescopes and Hubble etc and expect to see the same through our own vastly cheaper and less powerful scopes. Its human nature.

From what I gather Mars is an extremely challenging target for a newcomer to image. If you see any detail at all count that as a major victory. As a newbie myself I count myself fortunate to have succeded where so many have failed

I spent hours at the ep with only occasional glimpses of features. However this past week has seen very calm conditions in this area and (and this is the most important bit) I learned how to coliminate properly.

My own scope is a 10" lightbridge with a f5 focal length. Improperly coliminated, distant fuzzies, the moon and saturn are easily seeable but Mars is far more demanding especially in a "fast" (low focal length) scope. Now that I've sorted the collimination out Mars reveals itself almost constantly.

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