A little bit of solar system observing

[AndyWB]

Inspired by the Sky at Night this evening, I nipped outside for a bit of viewing with the 5". I also took my barlow for a change, to try to push the magnification a bit. 

Jupiter - The great red spot was coming around for transit, but I didn't get a lot of detail before I lost it to the trees. Couldn't see Callisto, which was transiting, apparently.

The Moon - lovely, and I had the best views of Reiner Gamma and Vallis Schroteri that I've seen yet.

Mars - With my 6mm barlowed, I finally saw the polar ice cap! I'm quite excited about that. Lots of detail on the surface too. Sketch to follow. I really must get the 250px on this one soon.

Vesta - Tricky to find with all the moonlight, but once found, actually quite bright.

Ceres - Though close(ish) to Vesta, still tricky to find. Much dimmer.

And finally, I'd packed up - and noticed Saturn, so I had a look at that too. Nice rings, with Saturn still casting a shadow onto them. Titan seemed bright, and Rhea was pretty easy to spot too.

Not bad for an hour and a quarter outside

[cotterless45]

Lovely report, very often it is the simplest of sessions which give the most pleasure. We had horrible seeing here and in the end I just gave up,

Nick.

[Qualia]

Great report, Andy. I've never imagined Ceres or Vesta would be possible, never contemplated the possibility so thanks for the heads up on this one! I will print out a detailed map and go hunting . Other than that had pretty much a similar session. Watched for a while the GRS transit with Callisto's shadow just above it but mainly concentrated on Mars, rounding the evening with a big bright Moon and Saturn's graceful beauty.  

[AndyWB]

Well, they're asteroids, so they're, um, star-like. Should get really close later this year - 10 arc minutes on the 5th July. http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/observing-news/ceres-and-vesta-in-2014/  A few weeks earlier might be better - although they'll be further apart, they'll be higher.

Here's my sketch of Mars last night for the log book. Orientation might be a little off, I think I was sat at a funny angle.

I'm no artist, but it's gratifyingly fairly similar to Rik's - http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/213889-mars-1342014/

[AlexB67]

Very nice Andy. Here is my rendition, first ever sketch for the lounge, usually mine are quick pen scribbles to note main features, but took a  lot more time over this one. 

Drawn and processed in the gimp based on crude drawings I made, and then struggled for several hours to get on top of the gimp in some ways.The gimp ain't bad, just how to use it and getting on top of it using brushes/effects and all that.    

I may want to get one of those drawing tablets at some point, a mouse is quite tricky

My drawing is purely cheating of course because it is mostly sketching on the computer.  I wanted to do some more editing this lunch time only to supidly have flattened the image before I finished, so pretty much all final edits I wanted to make vanished, I could not be bothered to start again though   . Colours/contrast adjusted for better viewing during daytime I hope. 

Since I'll never be an imager I just go to get good at image drawing in future. but if they are going to take a long as this one I am not sure I'll have the patience  . Quite satisfying when all was said and done though.

[StarSapling]

You all in the U.K.  are getting some really good views of the interesting side of Mars.  By the time I can observe Mars, here in Arizona, the boring side of Mars is presented until about 3 or 4 in the morning.  But I have had some good views of the North Polar Cap/Mare Boreum/Utopia region with very faint and subtle markings elsewhere.  The up side for the current presentation of Mars, for me, is that Nix Olympus is near the center of the disk.  Maybe, if one those near mythological moments of perfect seeing occur,  I will be able to catch a glimpse of it.

[Special K]

Nice report and results Andy. Huge congrats on the polar cap!! What mag did you go up to, 260x? Last night was quite good seeing in my neck of the woods and enjoyed showing mars to my kids. It was a first for them, and the 9 year old Joe even spotted the CA blue-ness! We could make out some variation and detail so not so bad. We then went to the Solar Walk app on the iPad to demonstrate the opposition.

Leaving the scope out till 2am I grabbed a very nice view of Saturn. Scope was uber-cooled and when the seeing periodically settled it was a beauty! Thought I could even detect some details on the planet surface itself.

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