I cooled down my 12" Dob for tree hours along with my lens case. I'm using a 10mm lens, so that puts me @ 150 magnification. Without some kind of flter Mars seems too bright to get any detail, similar to Venus. From what I'm hearing from the rest of you, noboby uses filters when observing Mars .?.? No roofs….no pavemets. I did think the atmosphere was more stable last night…just couldn't focus as well as I thougt should have been able to. I'll give it another try tonigt along with a look at Saturn to compare and re-colimnate. Couldn't split Serius.
Thanks for your input.
Happy Trails
Rick