2014 - Astrophotography by Pete Richardson

Mars, the Red Planet has held a fascination amongst astronomers for as long as telecopes have been pointing at the skies and has long been thought to be a prime candidate for life other than the Earth in our Solar System. With the recent successes of the NASA landers that are now sending back spectacular images from the surface, the interest in this amazing world is at an all time high. It is almost certain that liquid water once flowed in large quantities over the Martian surface, with many water eroded features having been found and analysed. It is also still possible that microbial life still exists in areas below the surface where conditions might be more favourable to sustain life in its primitive form. As a target for the amateur astro imager it makes a great subject and is capable of revealing many surface features including the huge volcano Olympus Mons, Polar caps and many albedo features.