[AZ-Observing] Re: No Daytime Mars
- From: "William R Wood" <wmrwood@xxxxxxx>
- To: <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 12:07:12 -0700
> I really need to drag my butt out of bed a bit early and
> get a look through Gert. Sounds like I'm missing a heck of a show :)
> Rick Tejera
> Editor SACnews
> Saguaro Astronomy Club
> Phoenix, Arizona
>
Definitely recommend it! I dragged mine out at 1:30am this morning and
looked through the 10" DK-Cassegrain for almost 2 hours. The weather was
delightful when I went outside - very warm and dead calm and, for a change,
there were no pigs in our yard :o) Mars was about 3 deg from the full moon
and behind some clouds for about 15 minutes but then the sky cleared. Seeing
was only 3/10 measured on a mag 3 star near Mars but the view of the planet
was still quite nice. I was able to use 400x (but 240x was better) and the
image was big and appeared fully round. The S polar cap is getting smaller
and the edge was pretty smooth with no dark collar but it still looks neat.
This morning there were large dark gray features on the planet's surface
between the S pole and the equator. I saw many brief instants of photo like
clarity in these features while staring at the image. It was like viewing a
movie with 3 or 4 sharp images for every 100 blurry frames.
I was a little frustrated because the seeing was 5/10 the prior evening when
I set the 10" scope up. The changeability of the seeing drives me nuts
trying to choose between a 5" refractor and the 10" reflector. The smaller
scope handles poor seeing far better and I can't seem to figure out how to
predict good seeing and thus be ready with the bigger scope. So far I have
guessed wrong every time and end up with the 10" when the seeing is at its
worst. But better days are coming :o)
Regards,
Bill Wood
Fountain Hills, AZ
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