Photo of the Week for April 25, 2014

Daniel Leclerc recorded this fine image of Mars two days after the red planet had its closest approach to Earth in seven years. Taken April 16 at 11:10 p.m., EDT, with Sky-Watcher 8-inch Newtonian from his backyard in Pointe-aux-Trembles, Quebec, Leclerc’s image clearly shows the Martian north polar cap, the peach-hued deserts, the dark region known as Acidalium below the cap, and the dark region Aurorea Sinus at bottom. He used a DBK 21AU618.AS CCD camera at 60 frames per second, 4× Barlow lens, UV/IR-cut filter. AutoStakkert2! image-processing software was used on 1,500 frames followed by wavelet filtering with Iris.