Mars still looking good

[Fozzie]

12 minutes ago, globular said:

Nice one Fozzie.... and signed too 😉

So I can tell it's mine on the side of the fridge, strong competition in the house with a 2 and 5 year old!

[Barry-W-Fenner]

Anyone else seeing a kind of butterfly 🦋 grey shape in the centre of Mars tonight?

[John]

This is the newtonian view from Mars Mapper currently. I guess the Syrtis Major (dark elongated area running from S to N) could be the butterflies body and the dark ares either side the wings ?:
 

I'm not seeing the Hellas region to the S of the Syrtis Major quite as bright / pale as that simulation.

Edited November 3, 2020 by John

[GordonD]

Super view of Mars this evening. Using a 300mm Dob but very contrasty and sharp right up to 333x. I don't recall ever seeing as much detail before.

Does it always look like this in locations away from the jet stream I wonder? 

Edited November 3, 2020 by GordonD

[John]

11 minutes ago, GordonD said:

Super view of Mars this evening. Using a 300mm Dob but very contrasty and sharp right up to 333x. I don't recall ever seeing as much detail before.

Does it always look like this in locations from the jet stream I wonder? 

The past couple of nights have been excellent. Prior to the rainy weather we had last week, the seeing was not so good and the contrast on Mars rather washed out.

300x does seem the optimum here tonight as well.

 

[John]

Mars almost behind our house now so I've moved on to some binary stars. Alpha Piscium is a lovely one - mags 4 and 5 and 1.8 arc seconds separation.

Coldest night of the Autumn so far I think. I don't think there will be a frost but it might get close.

Just waiting for the moon to rise above the conifer

[RobertI]

Had another nice little session with the 102ED-R and binoviewers at about 175x. A bit steadier than last night so I attempted a sketch (I did a rough version followed by a 'nicer' version shown below). When I got in I was quite pleased with how well it matched Mars Mapper (you might disagree ).

Syrtis Major is the pointy bit, Hellas is the pale region between Syrtis Major and the south pole. Sinus Sabaeus is the dark edge sweeping upto two o'clock with a 'fork' like feature below - I thought it had three prongs.

Hope you don't mind me adding to the thread John.

 

 

Edited November 3, 2020 by RobertI

[Peter Drew]

A brief look at around 6.30 this evening.  Mars not really high enough and the dome and equipment not really settled but despite this I still had one of my best views so far this year.  Could use 400x on the SW 150ed and 500x on the 16" SCT but 100x less on each was better overall.  The SCT just shaded the 6" again which says a lot for the SW.   🙂 

[nephilim]

7 minutes ago, John said:

Mars almost behind our house now so I've moved on to some binary stars. Alpha Piscium is a lovely one - mags 4 and 5 and 1.8 arc seconds separation.

Coldest night of the Autumn so far I think. I don't think there will be a frost but it might get close.

Just waiting for the moon to rise above the conifer

It got down to minus 1 on the way back to the Lakes from the Yorkshire Dales this evening so those frosty nights are definitely on the way 🥶

Edited November 3, 2020 by nephilim

[John]

Orion just coming up now. E & F Trapezium seen for the first time this season. Moon is wonderful as well. What a lovely night, unless you are after faint DSO's of course !

 

[John]

Brrr, it's a cold one !

Just finished my session with a quick tour of Orion's double stars. Nice splits of all at 300x plus. 32 Orionis AND 52 Orionis split as well. That latter one can be tough at not much over 1 arc second separation.

What an excellent night

I hope others have had some fun as well.

[IB20]

3 hours ago, John said:

This is the newtonian view from Mars Mapper currently. I guess the Syrtis Major (dark elongated area running from S to N) could be the butterflies body and the dark ares either side the wings ?:
 

I'm not seeing the Hellas region to the S of the Syrtis Major quite as bright / pale as that simulation.

Agree John, about 9-10pm I could clearly see Syrtis Major, Tyrrhena Terra,Terra Sabaea, Isidis Planitia and the south polar cap but couldn’t clearly make out Hellas Planitia. 

 

[AdeKing]

2 minutes ago, John said:

Brrr, it's a cold one !

Just finished my session with a quick tour of Orion's double stars. Nice splits of all at 300x plus. 32 Orionis AND 52 Orionis split as well. That latter one can be tough at not much over 1 arc second separation.

What an excellent night

I hope others have had some fun as well.

It certainly is cold out there John.  I don't think we've quite had a frost yet, but the thermometer in the summerhouse is indicating 1°C.

I've had an excellent session with the ED120 tonight with some excellent detail seen on Mars, probably the most detailed views I've had this season. 

Best views for me were with the 3-6 Nagler Zoom set at 4mm (225x).  I could still see detail with the 3mm setting (300x) but the views at 225x were just higher contrast and more pleasing to the eye.

I was hoping to binoview tonight, but no matter what I tried, just could not get the views to merge.

Finished off on M42 with the ED120 showing both the E and F stars of the Trapezium, which I was pleased about.

Now inside warming up with a nice cup of tea

[John]

4 minutes ago, AdeKing said:

....Now inside warming up with a nice cup of tea

Good move - me too !

[IB20]

Hellas Planitia easily spotted tonight, despite a slight haziness from fireworks and occasional high cloud.

Perhaps I was looking for it and focusing on its location more after yesterday’s discussion? 🤷🏼‍♂️ 
Is it possible that knowing what you should be seeing can help show a feature? Is this a thing?

[John]

51 minutes ago, IB20 said:

Is it possible that knowing what you should be seeing can help show a feature? Is this a thing?

It certainly is something that happens in all types of observing but it can be both positive and negative of course.

Once you have seen something once, it does get easier to see the next time you go looking for it or for something similar. Experience of what various types of target actually look like though the eyepiece is a great help.

On the negative side (well slightly anyway) there is a risk that you will "see" what you want and expect to be there, even if in reality it's not quite visible on that occasion. Just something to be aware of when observing and I guess it pays to be a little self critical at times.

Tonight I was looking for Phobos and Deimos with my 12 inch newtonian. I was observing at very high magnifications and trying really hard using all the techniques that I know to try and pull these faint specks of light out of the Martian light halo. A few times I thought that I had a candidate but when I looked again I could not see it and saw something somewhere else. After a while I concluded that I was simply trying too hard !

When I checked with Stellarium, the positions of these moons at the time I was observing put them really close to the planet so there was no way that I was going to see them this evening

Fun trying though

Edited November 4, 2020 by John

[IB20]

19 minutes ago, John said:

Tonight I was looking for Phobos and Deimos with my 12 inch newtonian. I was observing at very high magnifications and trying really hard using all the techniques that I know to try and pull these faint specks of light out of the Martian light halo. A few times I thought that I had a candidate but when I looked again I could not see it and saw something somewhere else. After a while I concluded that I was simply trying too hard !

When I checked with Stellarium, the positions of these moons at the time I was observing put them really close to the planet so there was no way that I was going to see them this evening

Fun trying though

I always attempt to observe Phobos and/or Deimos when I view Mars. Similarly I convince myself I have glimpsed one, but checking SkySafari shows that it wasn’t and usually turns out to be a low mag star or reflection. Same with the ice giants’ satellites.

Trying to observe these faint objects is probably when I’m at my most self-critical as I want to be certain. You’re right about it being fun though, I really enjoy attempting difficult targets, and it’ll be extra satisfying when I eventually clock them.

[John]

22 hours ago, IB20 said:

Hellas Planitia easily spotted tonight, despite a slight haziness from fireworks and occasional high cloud.

Perhaps I was looking for it and focusing on its location more after yesterday’s discussion? 🤷🏼‍♂️ 
Is it possible that knowing what you should be seeing can help show a feature? Is this a thing?

I'm observing with a Tak 100 this evening. Had a good look at the Hellas Basin region. It is a paler patch than the surrounding features but it's fringes seem less well defined than some of the simulations show.

I do recall seeing it as a more distinct and defined bright patch in previous oppositions and images from past oppositions often show it as a clearly defined bright circular feature, sometimes even frost filled.

Not this year though. 

I wonder what has caused this huge basin to become less well defined ?

 

 

[Paz]

It's been very helpful reading this and other recent posts about Mars. I'm not experienced in observing Mars and have been going through a learning curve on this planet recently. Each time I give it a go I see more details as my brain slowly stitches the view together.

Tonight I was out with the C8 observing up to 200x but the main thing that improved the view was just time at the eyepiece and me tuning into the details plus Mars getting higher all the while.

I had planned a bit of Mars and a lot of dso's but realised I was on to a good thing and so I didn't get around to looking at any dso's.

[IB20]

24 minutes ago, John said:

I'm observing with a Tak 100 this evening. Had a good look at the Hellas Basin region. It is a paler patch than the surrounding features but it's fringes seem less well defined than some of the simulations show.

I do recall seeing it as a more distinct and defined bright patch in previous oppositions and images from past oppositions often show it as a clearly defined bright circular feature, sometimes even frost filled.

Not this year though. 

I wonder what has caused this huge basin to become less well defined ?

 

 

Do you think it could be axial tilt and season related? Looking at the Mars opposition calendar, maybe the southern hemisphere summer leads to less frost and possible reduced reflectivity? 🤷🏼‍♂️ 

I haven’t gone out today, its crystal clear but my observing canine companion has the firework heebee-jeebees!
 

 

[RobertI]

Just in from another quick Mars session, still awesome with some nice detail despite wobby edges. Loving binoviewing but it does mean there are two eyepieces to steam up! Now I need some dewstraps for both eyepieces. 🙄

[John]

Another clear night forecast here tonight

Interesting to think that Mars, though gradually dwindling in size, is still a couple of arc seconds larger now than it will be at it's maximum at it's next opposition 2 years from now. 10 days from now it will be around the size it will reach in December 2022 and after that it continues to shrink. It won't appear this large again until 2033. 

The time to observe Mars is NOW

 

[globular]

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️😧

[Ibbo!]

Its been nice to see a planet away from the horizon.

It will also be higher for us NH types in a couple of years.

[John]

The seeing thus far is not co-operating. I'll keep at it for a while longer but so far the Martian features are rather indistinct and keep breaking up as the atmosphere (of Earth) intervenes

Can't win them all !