Mars - 21 March 2012 with blue limb haze

[DarkerSky]

A super view of mars last night with my 16" despite AIII seeing. Grabbed this sketch

16" x295 magnification

21.20UT

21-March 2012

CM 49 degrees

Mare Acidalium looking awesome in the north adjoining the small NPC. Again, just like last time, the border of the NPC was darker in a section close to the centre and its upper left. Nice to see Achillis Fons, Nilo Keras and Idaeus Fons so clearly moving out from the Mare towards the morning limb.

The limb itself near the Tharis region was quite bright and had a distinct blueness to it. First time i have ever seen a bluish limb haze on the red planet!

In the South I was getting some decent definition to mare Erythraeum. Got a nice gap between it and Sinus Meridani setting on the evening limb. Also seemed quite bright up on the southern limb area with the onset of winter up here.

Oxla Palus was very obvious and created a bridge of material between Mare Erythraeum and Nilliacus Lacus on the preceeding boundary of Chyrse.

Chyrse itself was quite noticeable with a distnictive if low intensity brightening near its centre. Just on the following side of the CM Aurorae Sinus dropped down noticeably from Mare Erythraeum towards Achillis Fons.

All in all a really cool observation!

[Mike73]

Nice sketch Seb.

I still haven't had a good view of Mars from home and every time I've been to a dark site I've got carried away with Messiers and DSO's!

What does AIII seeing mean? (maybe stupid question??)

[DarkerSky]

Thanks Mike.

Not a stupid question at all

AIII is a measure of the seeing - the steadiness of the air - as defined by Eugene Antoniadi on his Antoniadi Scale. It's a five point scale. This is a good page that explains the scale - Antoniadi scale

Mars is a tough nut to crack. A lot of the detail is subtle. With a 200P you probably need to get to 200x magnification with some steady seeing and also use a red filter or neodymium filter to increase contrast.

I've had some decent views this year with my 8.5" F5 scope at magnification around 220x

[Mike73]

Ahh well you learn something new everyday, thanks.

A neodymium filter is next on the list but until then I have a red camera filter around here somewhere, may try covering the EP with that and see if thats any better?

[dweller25]

Nice drawing Seb, I was out too and got a reasonable view.

[DarkerSky]

Thanks David. Yes, I was pretty pleased with the detail I grabbed that evening.