Nice Mars tonight

[John]

Mars is looking good tonight.

Nice and steady with quite a lot of contrast in the surface features at 300x with my ED120 refractor.

20 arc second disk as well !

Forecast was cloudy tonight so a bonus session

[Sky-searcher]

Just awoken to amazing conditions also John. Wasn’t forecast as well for the Isle of Man.  Popped outside to be greeted by perfectly clear skies with the moon & Mars high in the sky. Quickly took the scopes from the garage for a quick session. My 1st seeing of Mars since early summer & I’m amazed at the detail through my 80mm frac with binoviewers, 2.6 GPC & hyperflex zooms at 13mm (not sure of the mag?). The little frac views where better than my MAK127. Pink disc with obvious grey details seen. Mercury also high in the eastern sky & the moon just below zenith. Not seen conditions like this for a while, no turbulence & perfectly still views to take in the details. Nice way to start the day! Thanks Andy.

[dweller25]

Magnification = (focal length x gpc x 1.7)/eyepiece length

1.7 is an approximate factor for the binoviewer effect
2.6 GPC actually gives x2.4

So for a 600mm focal length scope ??

magnification = (600x2.4x1.7)/13

magnification = x188 approx

[dweller25]

6 hours ago, John said:

Mars is looking good tonight.

Nice and steady with quite a lot of contrast in the surface features at 300x with my ED120 refractor.

20 arc second disk as well !

Forecast was cloudy tonight so a bonus session

Looking forward to Mars rising a bit earlier - well done for getting/staying up 👍

[RobertI]

I saw it was clear on my drive home but it had clouded over by the time I was ready to observe. Shame because the seeing looked good. I think we may have some clear nights coming up though. 

[F15Rules]

Yes, I was surprised when I went out at c11.15pm to lock up, and saw a lovely sky with moon and Mars prominent.

Forecast tonight looks promising (there, I said it!), I hope to get out if it is indeed clear..

Dave

Edited September 9, 2020 by F15Rules

[F15Rules]

...and of course, after wall to wall blue skies all day, it's now wall to wall cloud..

On the plus side, we were this afternoon treated to 4 RAF Typhoons going right over us in right banked formation no more than 400 or 500 feet up (we have the RAF Coningsby base nearby 😊).

Dave

[DaveL59]

was a dark cloud blanket here earlier and light rain. Then it's cleared but some light hazy stuff floating by. Sadly I won't be out late as I'm meeting my former boss tomorrow. Always the way huh, clear skies and no chance to play lol. Still there'll be other nights, after all am between jobs again so can play when I want after tomorrow 🙂 

[JeremyS]

18 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

...and of course, after wall to wall blue skies all day, it's now wall to wall cloud..

On the plus side, we were this afternoon treated to 4 RAF Typhoons going right over us in right banked formation no more than 400 or 500 feet up (we have the RAF Coningsby base nearby 😊).

Dave

That’s plane amazing, Dave!
 

I wonder if those pilots have handle bar moustaches.

No doubt they got a handle on you as they flew over.

 

🙂

 

[DaveL59]

15 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

That’s plane amazing, Dave!
 

I wonder if those pilots have handle bar moustaches.

No doubt they got a handle on you as they flew over.

 

🙂

 

likely woke them up with that huge rocket launcher he was aiming in their direction 😉 

[Telescope40]

53 minutes ago, F15Rules said:

...and of course, after wall to wall blue skies all day, it's now wall to wall cloud..

On the plus side, we were this afternoon treated to 4 RAF Typhoons going right over us in right banked formation no more than 400 or 500 feet up (we have the RAF Coningsby base nearby 😊).

Dave

Thwarted here too. Lovely blue all day as you Dave.  Starts to get dark and Bam. It’s even trying to rain now.  Grim.  Really fancied a session as day off tomorrow. 
Caught a couple of Army Chinooks on Monday while at work. (I’m a part time Postman) Loved the heavy sound of the rotors as they went on their way - whop whop whop !! 
John 
 

[F15Rules]

51 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

53 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

That’s plane amazing, Dave!
 

I wonder if those pilots have handle bar moustaches.

No doubt they got a handle on you as they flew over.

 

🙂

 

Can't compete with that Jeremy.. you're far too fly for me, I just try to wing it as I go..yes, the pilots saw us (I'm on a roll now), and fired off their afterburners in thanks for our admiration of their handling of all the levers and handles they have to pull whilst piloting their wonderful machines, what?😎😁

Dave

[John]

46 minutes ago, Telescope40 said:

Thwarted here too. Lovely blue all day as you Dave.  Starts to get dark and Bam. It’s even trying to rain now.  Grim.  Really fancied a session as day off tomorrow....

 

That's bad luck.

I won't go on about my lovely clear dark skies here tonight then .....

[DaveL59]

Mars has risen above the roofs here but too late to be getting the scope out to play. Plus the neighbours might think I'm aiming at their bedroom windows lol

[Peter Drew]

A session tonight from 10pm until midnight.  Good transparency but very wobbly images, Jupiter just a couple of fuzzy belts, Saturn a little better with glimpses of the CD and Mars latterly probably the best I've seen so far this apparition, obvious SPC and a grey banding to the lower disc.  Tweaked the collimation on the 16" SCT and the image shaded that of its SW 150ED finder.  Tried a number of filters, the only one that showed any improvement was an IR one.    🙂 

[John]

54 minutes ago, Peter Drew said:

.... its SW 150ED finder......  

[chiltonstar]

Last night's view of Mars was probably the best I've had so far this year. With my 180 Mak, I found I got the best view with a 0.9 Baader ND filter, and even at its current altitude, my ADC helped a bit with contrast. Best magnification was x250 once the scope had settled and Mars had risen a bit (24:00). I could see a few of the details that I'd captured in an image the night before I think including the albedo area around Olympus Mons.

Chris

[Saganite]

Similar story really though I did catch the GRS very sweetly a number of times during half an hour of observing, using my FC100, when the atmosphere calmed ( 148X).  As is often the case, Saturn was  pretty good and took higher power ( 185 x )showing a good Cassini  and some banding. I waited until about 1.30 am for Mars to reach a better altitude but the image was not as good as I had seen a couple of weeks ago when it was stable and sharp,  though  the white polar cap was very evident. (185X).

Edited September 10, 2020 by Saganite
Neglected to mention scope being used.

[John]

1 hour ago, chiltonstar said:

Last night's view of Mars was probably the best I've had so far this year. With my 180 Mak, I found I got the best view with a 0.9 Baader ND filter, and even at its current altitude, my ADC helped a bit with contrast. Best magnification was x250 once the scope had settled and Mars had risen a bit (24:00). I could see a few of the details that I'd captured in an image the night before I think including the albedo area around Olympus Mons.

Chris

It had clouded over here before Mars rose high enough to observe

Before then I had a really good session with my 12 inch dob on planetary nebulae and globular clusters.

[robhatherton]

I’ll tack on to here because I was about to ask this. I was looking about 11 last night with my f7 102ed and really couldn’t get very clear views of mars. I could see hints of detail in the centre but couldn’t discern any polar cap. Beyond about 100x it was starting to look bloated with no more detail.

I don’t think collimation is the problem as stars are pinpoint and doubles split easily and clearly. Was I just looking too early in the evening?

[John]

6 hours ago, robhatherton said:

I’ll tack on to here because I was about to ask this. I was looking about 11 last night with my f7 102ed and really couldn’t get very clear views of mars. I could see hints of detail in the centre but couldn’t discern any polar cap. Beyond about 100x it was starting to look bloated with no more detail.

I don’t think collimation is the problem as stars are pinpoint and doubles split easily and clearly. Was I just looking too early in the evening?

I don't think you were observing too early. Maybe you had some local atmospheric disturbance ?

Last night I was observing Mars from 11:00 pm for a while then again at around 1:00 am when it reappeared from behind a tree with my ED120 again and the views were quite well defined with the S polar cap showing distinctly. 

The seeing was quite steady last night so I found 225x - 300x produced a decent image with the ED120.

I've not tried my Vixen ED102SS which at F/6.5 is closer in spec to your scope. I'll give it a go on Mars and let you know how that does.