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Mars  -  Taken over the last few years at optimum viewing times. Though both amateur and professional astronomer's have taken far better pictures of Mars, I'm reminded of the sentiment of Keats' poem 'On First Looking Into Chapman's Homer' by some of these shots....
Though you might not be the first person to see something, the first time you see it for yourself is a moment of discovery in and of itself.

Since my equipment limited my ability to document in this case, I tried to add an artistic aspect by shooting Mars as it approached the edges of various clouds (giving the planet a mysterious, smokey aspect). Still, one can see the major features of Mars even in such simple -- almost abstract -- photographs: The southern highlands, which are pockmarked by impact craters and deep gorges, are darker and rougher than the bright northern dunescapes. A century ago these darker regions (which look greenish through a telescope) were interpreted as the last outposts of life on an otherwise dead world. An american astronomer named Percival Lowell argued that the dark lines that seem to radiate from these blotches were artificially constructed canals. Like HG Wells before him, he speculated that a race of extraterrestrials -- far older than Man -- were facing their final days on this cold, desert world. They were, accordingly, an old and noble race that, facing extinction, had devoted their last measure of life to creating channels that could bring water from the poles to the planet's habitable region.

As for the poles... note that the southern ice cap appears to jut out from the planet itself. This is an illusion of optics... however it is a prominent one. Looking through a telescope or camera... it's hard for one to escape the impression of a world that is just as dynamic and life-bearing as the Earth is.

James Dinnerville  

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