You should definitely be able to see surface features. Very often focus
is the most difficult part. Plus you should be aligning and stacking
the results of many shots to get the best results.

But I have no knowledge of that camera and its sensitivity. Perhaps
denser filters are the answer.

Phil

Johan van der Walt wrote:
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?