I hope I post this to the correct group.

I have access to a 12" Meade LX200 telescope that is located at a very
good site. Also available is a Meade Pictor 416XT CCD camera which I have
used on several occasions. About two weeks ago I tried to image Mars
which turned out to be way too bright since severe blooming occured
even at the shortest shutter speed of 5 milliseconds. Last Friday
evening I tried again but this time I also used Optec's filters
in conjunction with the CCD camera that made a huge difference in
terms of the fact that no blooming occured, except when really
overexposing the CCD.

What was rather disappointing is that at the best focus I just
couldn't see any surface features of Mars while I expected to see
something. The planet just remained a white blob on the screen.
Can I expect to see any surface features or not? This is the case
in all the filters that I used viz Johnson BVR.

I shall appreciate any advice.

Thanks

Johan van der Walt
Potchefstroom
South Africa