Mars continues to retrograde in Gemini south of the twin stars Castor and Pollux, now beginning to make a sharper triangle with the celestial brothers.  Mars is dimming somewhat, now shining at magnitude -1.27 and having a diameter of 14.3" arcseconds.  Unannotated image, Gemini star names.

Two days before this image was taken, and also two days afterward, I observed Mars with my C8 and made these crude sketches in PowerPoint of the planet at varying magnifications:

In both cases, the prominent feature near Mars meridian was Syrtis Major; the north polar cap was of course nicely visible, but on the 24th, I also noticed a small darker area surrounding the polar cap, and also that the southern limb region was more lightly colored.

I also reduced the color contrast between dark and light areas to more closely match what eye see ~ what I see in the eyepiece is not nearly as distinct as pictures or drawings depict.