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MARS - It's official, the duststorm is CLEARING

paulastro

By paulastro
in Observing - Planetary

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paulastro

paulastro

Posted
Posted

No it's not me saying this, it's what Richard Mckim is saying on the BAA Mars section pages.   

https://britastro.org/node/10908

Read Richard's updates for July 9th, 10th and 14th.  He writes that ' The clearing of the storm continues' - hooray!!

On July 9th it indicates  'The heaviest obscuration is clearly from longitudes 0 through 120 degrees, approximately.'  This is good news as presently at 02.00 BST the Martian CM is at 196 degrees.

I must admit I feel rather pleased with myself as I'd posted up earlier today that  I thought that early this morning  the albedo features, though still rather fuzzy, are looking clearer in good moments, something I'd noticed to a lesser extent  over the last few days.  I'm just pleased it wasn't my eyes playing tricks on me!

So well worth observing Mars now and not waiting until it's crystal clear.  As Richard says, the changes to features affected by lying dust on the various features will be good to watch as the storm subsides.

 

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John

John

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Interesting.

I observed Mars last night with my 5.1 inch apo and the disk was wonderfully large and sharp but anything resembling surface detail no more than vague hints. I thought anything that I was seeing was my eyes playing tricks with me !

Presumably the highest areas will emerge 1st from the storm ?

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paulastro

paulastro

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1 minute ago, John said:

Interesting.

I observed Mars last night with my 5.1 inch apo and the disk was wonderfully large and sharp but anything resembling surface detail no more than vague hints. I thought anything that I was seeing was my eyes playing tricks with me !

Presumably the highest areas will emerge 1st from the storm ?

I agree that the albedo features are still vague and hazy John, but still  less so in the last few days than they had been previously according to my own observations- and more frequent glimpses of them :smile:.  Let's hope the clearing process is fairly rapid!

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Knighty2112

Knighty2112

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Had a brief look at Mars last night through my small frac and I could make out some faint darker patches in the red glare, which stood out a little more when I trained my C8 SCT on it too, so good news for the opposition in 12 days. Fingers crossed! :) 

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paulastro

paulastro

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6 minutes ago, Geoff Barnes said:

Image taken today from Sydney showing substantially more detail.....image.png.77bbd136e5af994ed513ae5304e67537.png

That looks a great image Geoff, but can you make it any bigger?  I can't seem to be able to enlarge it.  Many thanks for posting. :smile:

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Geoff Barnes

Geoff Barnes

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1 hour ago, paulastro said:

That looks a great image Geoff, but can you make it any bigger?  I can't seem to be able to enlarge it.  Many thanks for posting. :smile:

All I can do is give you the link to the Oz Forum Ice In Space where it was posted....http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=1384625#post1384625

Click on the image to enlarge, hope it works. ?

(Edit; It works for me).

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paulastro

paulastro

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48 minutes ago, Geoff Barnes said:

All I can do is give you the link to the Oz Forum Ice In Space where it was posted....http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?p=1384625#post1384625

Click on the image to enlarge, hope it works. ?

(Edit; It works for me).

Many thanks Geoff, it worked fine.  Even better on the bigger image, much more detail than I've seen since the dust storm peaked, it indeed shows that the dust storm is on the wane, thanks again.

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BRADLEY 1953

BRADLEY 1953

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Hi everyone, I also observed Mars with a 5.1 inch APO, on Saturday morning July 14th. Once again a large clearly defined disc, and yes, in moments of better seeing just a few diffuse surface features were visible using a Wratten 23A filter.  However, still a long way to go.   Best wishes  Chris.

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paulastro

paulastro

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6 minutes ago, BGazing said:

Taking my Tak to Greece and hope for some good seeing and dust settling...this hobby really trains one's patience. :)

Yes, you'll need plenty of patience if you're going to be in it for the long run :smile:

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cotterless45

cotterless45

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It might have cleared up there , but after days of clear nights , it's clouded up down here. Last session, Mars was a huge and very stable disc at x200. Just looked like an orange tennis ball !

 Here's to waiting ! Nick.

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chiltonstar

chiltonstar

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1 hour ago, cotterless45 said:

It might have cleared up there , but after days of clear nights , it's clouded up down here. Last session, Mars was a huge and very stable disc at x200. Just looked like an orange tennis ball !

 Here's to waiting ! Nick.

Worth waiting for, judging by previous Mars apparitions! Last night, I had to lug my Mak 180 and SkyTee2 into the field to get a good view, and I did think a little detail was visible - around the polar cap and the Mare Erythraeum area. Roll on good seeing here & there!

Chris

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John

John

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27 minutes ago, Stu said:

Heading towards the south coast soon, so perhaps with a sea horizon I will get some decent seeing. Fingers crossed, not observed Mars so far this time around!

If the dust storm does subside (signs are positive) we are in for a treat. I've observed Mars a few times lately and the disk size and clarity are very impressive. It's just the surface features that have been largely missing, thus far.

Hope you get some good views from the S coast. I'm heading the other way tomorrow so thats not going to help with the altitude of Mars :rolleyes2:  but hopefully I'll get some nice dark skies to compensate, for Summer DSO observing.

 

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Rob

Rob

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Down to our neck of the woods then Stu!.. good. Lets hope you, me.. well all of us have good viewing by end of next week. I'm now traveling and will be in the Cotswold's!. Now I'll just be taking the ED70 & EQ5 as a travel setup for the 27th. I don't think the Wife would be mega happy for me to bring the AR127 & Heq5!.

Just hope the seeing is good, and that I can push the little ED70 to high mags!. Then have to wait for maybe Sunday to haul the big setup to the New Forest

Rob

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Stu

Stu

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Thanks all. I shall have the trusty Tak on the AZGTi so I have tracking which will help with pulling out any detail visible. Shall take the Ercole for some relaxed star hopping/MW trawling :)

 

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