I got a brief view of Mars last night with my 127mm Maksutov Cassegrain. The planet’s starting to look quite big at 11.4 arc seconds. The phase was very distinctive (86.9% illuminated). Although the seeing was fairly good for the time of year there were humidity/transparency issues. At 17° altitude I wasn’t expecting much to be honest. I used a Baader Semi-Apo filter and magnifications between about 180x~256x. I’m pretty sure I could just about perceive the tiny white point of the southern pole. The possible NPH clouds were in the north but quite muted compared to what they were a few weeks ago. I also got a hint of darker albedo features.
Telescopes: One Newtonian, three Maksutov Cassegrains, seven refractors, and a large SCT.