[AZ-Observing] The Fourth of Mars
- From: Andrew Cooper <acooper@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: AZ-Observing mailing list <az-observing@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 04 Jul 2003 16:15:59 -0700
When I finally woke up to read my e-mail I see that quite a few
observers took a holiday morning look at Mars. I didn't wake up to
greet a morning planet, but instead viewed it as a treat after a good
night's observing. Unable to get out observing last weekend (work!) I
braved a couple hours of moonlight to setup the 18" in the picnic area
adjacent to the Whipple Observatory visitor's center in the foothills to
the Santa Rita Mts. The site is fourty miles from the Aspen Fire and I
hoped enough to get out from under the pall of heavy smoke that
blanketed Tucson's sky.
Not completely successful, for about half an hour after midnight I was
effectively shut down by the smoke! A shift in the wind brought it my
way. I was fourty miles from the fire and the smoke was enough to
completely vanish a brilliant rising Mars. Fortunately this was the
exception and aside from the occasional gust of wind the night was quite
nice and I was able to get in some decent eyepiece time to remedy a case
of photon deprivation.
Mars was sublime, depite not having the best equipment for planetary
work. An 18" telescope at full aperture with a neutral density filter
to knock down the brilliance enough to see detail. Still after tweaking
the collomation a little more I was impressed as always on just how good
a job Thom did on the mirror. Even so, about 260x was about the limit
and patience was required for good moments. The seeing was a high
frequency, small cell size turbulence that lightly fuzzed the image most
of the time.
The polar cap was brilliant, and in moments of good seeing the border
became razor sharp. A faint dark band bordered the cap making it even
more dramatic. Mare Cimmerium and Syrtis Major were obvious. Hellas
was likewise easily visble above the Syrtis Major as a conspicuous
bright oval.
No obvious dust storms visible when I looked for them, but I am not an
experienced Mars observer and not familiar enough with what I should see
to spot a lighter patch where there should be none.
I need to get the baffles installed in the 90mm APO so I'll have a scope
more suited to planetary viewing ready for opposition. Let's hope the
martian dust storms hold off a little longer.
Andrew
--
Andrew Cooper
Tucson, AZ
mailto:acooper@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.whitethornhouse.com
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