[Chaos-l] Get Out And See Mars!

[Mark South]

Yes, this was the best I have ever seen Mars.  The polar cap was the  
most amazing feature I have ever seen in any planetary observation.
Mark
On Jan 17, 2010, at 10:58 AM, Robert Nielsen wrote:

> Everyone,
>
> I was out last Friday as well as Jorge and Jon ... but I went to  
> Medoc Mountain State Park, where I met Bruno Pancorbo, Mark South,  
> and Allen Davis.   Since Greg Fishel had backed off his forecast  
> that clouds would be showing up at 3 AM, I brought my big scope  
> (referred to by my wife as "the mistress") and planned to stay the  
> whole night.  I'm glad I brought the bigger scope, because one of  
> the highlights of the night was Mars!   That scope does pretty well  
> on the planets.
>
> I guess our view of Mars was better than Jon's and Jorge's for a few  
> reasons.  First, we didn't have a huge heat sink (Jordan Lake) to  
> the south of us.   Medoc does have a low light dome to the south,  
> probably caused by Rocky Mount, but there is not really any water  
> close by.   Also, we started looking at Mars after Mark arrived, a  
> little bit before midnight.   At that point, Mars was very, very  
> high in the sky - around 70 degrees in altitude.
>
> In any case, the seeing right around where Mars was actually was  
> pretty good.   Allen and I could push the magnification up beyond  
> 300x.  In fact, I put the 5mm Nagler in my scope, and while the view  
> wasn't perfect, it was usable.   But I settled in and used the 9mm  
> eyepiece, which gave a magnification of 396X.   You could *easily*  
> see the polar ice cap that is prominent on the planet now (you can  
> see it with even a very small scope or binoculars ... it is much  
> larger than the last time I really looked at Mars) because there is  
> a dark area that borders it.   And Friday night, there was a darker  
> area on the other pole of the planet (the south pole?) with portions  
> that poked up into the middle of the planet along one of its  
> limbs.   Even better, there were some features you could see in the  
> center of the planet and some structure to some of the dark areas.
>
> What was amazing was the view when Mark let us borrow his "Mars  
> filter".    Allen mentioned that he wasn't much of a fan of using  
> colored filters to look at planets.   I tend to agree ... I know  
> that people say they enhance certain characteristics of the view ...  
> but I've always thought that I could see those features without a  
> filter, and it looked more natural.   Well, the filter Mark had  
> definitely changed my mind.  Without a doubt, it enhanced both the  
> canali and the polar ice caps and seemed to bring out more detail.   
> In fact, it brought out enough detail that we could see the  
> structure in the southern darker area and I could see the darker  
> "spots" around Elysium Mons.   This filter really did seem to work  
> and the pinkish hue that it cast on the planet was not objectionable  
> at all.   Thanks again, Mark, for letting us borrow it!
>
> For more information about the filter, go to: http://www.astromart.com/articles/article.asp?article_id=597 
> .
>
> And to see what I think is the view we saw last Friday night, go to http://www.marsbase.net/m/mars-from-earth.php 
>  with a Java-enabled browser and enter the date 2010 1 16 and the  
> time 4 15 (this is UTC, so it is 5 hours ahead of our local time).    
> I think that is pretty close to what we saw (well, not as detailed,  
> obviously) but the northern ice cap was much, much larger.    
> Consider it to have covered most of the darker area at the top of  
> the map.
>
> And to see what the features are named on Mars, go to http://www.marsbase.net/m/mars-map.php 
> .
>
> I will try to write up more of the observing session on my blog in  
> the next week.   But I really enjoyed the time last Friday night ...  
> I needed a good, all-nighter under the stars ... with a fire close  
> by to warm me up ...
>
> Robert
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