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Mars - Get out there and see it!!!

russ

By russ
in Observing - Planetary

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russ

russ

Posted
Posted

Well if you have clear skies tonight get out there and get your scope trained on Mars. It has it's good side towards us, there is a mass of detail, it's flippin stunning. And it hasn't even gained much altitude yet, by 10pm onwards it should be even better.

Skies here in Hampshire are looking stable too. Can this be true...opposition and clear/stable skies.

Russ

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samtheeagle

samtheeagle

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Just been out in the bitter cold, and it was well worth it. My first look at Mars was awesome! I was out early so it was pretty swirly through all the atmosphere, but I still got some fleeting moments of clarity, and like Russ said there's a lot of detail to be seen today.

My favourite planet viewed at last. Happy days :)

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PaulG

PaulG

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Well if you have clear skies tonight get out there and get your scope trained on Mars. It has it's good side towards us, there is a mass of detail, it's flippin stunning. And it hasn't even gained much altitude yet, by 10pm onwards it should be even better.

Skies here in Hampshire are looking stable too. Can this be true...opposition and clear/stable skies.

Russ

Russ

When you say a mass of detail, what can you see down your end ?.

This is the first sighting of Mars through a telescope for me.

The only bit of detail I could tease was a white-ish coloured cap at around the 1 or 2 o'clock position.

It's quite windy in the Midlands and I was finding it a pig to nail the focus.

Paul

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Hypernova

Hypernova

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I've just been out to have have a look at Mars, I've managed to tease out some kind of detail for the first time, the polar cap at 5 o'clock and some dark mottling on the surface at 120x which seems about right if I invert the image in Stellarium :)

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Towa

Towa

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Was out making a drawing at 18:45 UT with the 120mm f/8.3 Achromat at 190x. The NPC with a very broad band, Syrtis Major,

Hellas, Libya, Tyrrhenum and even Eden area was picked up. Should get even better later on this evening.

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toilandtrouble123

toilandtrouble123

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all i can see is a orange(ish) dot:( still waiting on my 2x barlow arriving to use with my 10mm. giving me 130x will that be enuf???

i used my x2 barlow with my 10mm, giving me 132x, and all i could see was a orang-ish speck dancing here there and everywhere coz my mount's a pain in the ***!! maybe some one else has had better luck...

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brianb

brianb

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Nothing particularly special about tonight, Mars will be well placed for a few weeks yet.

Best to wait until it has got to a decent altitude - 10:30 pm to 1:30 am is the best time slot if you're on the Greenwich meridian, about 26 minutes later if you're as far west as me.

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tinvek

tinvek

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It would be nice if there were a blizard of stunning Mars pics posted tommorrow!

Picture of the week material.....surely

we've got the other type of blizzard here, well off and on, certainly no good to risk a scope at the moment :)

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skye at night

skye at night

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Snowing here...

and just got back after spinning the car on the road and bouncing off the crash barriers...

luckily as well as Myself, Mrs Skye and Skyechild being OK, there was no oncoming traffic and we hit on the inside..... bit of a drop on the other... bit of a scare though!!!

Must have passed 8 cars either ditched., in walls or worse in an 8 mile stretch... one embedded in a railway bridge..

Never seen anything quite like it here!

weird snow and no gritting...

Nightmare...

Was looking forward to Mars tonight, red wine, tv and being grateful to be home and safe is now the priority...

Good luck all others though.

Steve

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skye at night

skye at night

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Glad you are all ok Steve sounds like a nightmare ;)

Regards

Kevin

Thanks Kevin..

just glad to be home safe and not at the side of the road waiting for the AA or worse..

Luckily it was a front end impact and the bumper and towloop (as well as the barriers) took the blow...

Call to insurance company tomorrow now!:);):rolleyes:

Steve

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russ

russ

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Glad you and the family came out safe Steve, that is scary indeed.

If you can, crank the magnification up. It really helps to increase the image scale, it's much more important than having a super sharp tiny disk.

Brian is right, there could be better views to be had in the coming weeks. But on the otherhand the way the weather is, it could be pants for the coming weeks, so don't put it off. And compared to last week Mars is showing lots of detail. Really do need to push towards or past 200x though.

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ian_d

ian_d

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I've been having a comedy time trying to observe Mars tonight...got a few good glimpses inbetween the clouds early on, but quite unsteady skies here (Cheltenham). Then, from apparently nowhere, a massive pile of cloud crept up behind me and proceeded to start dumping snow on me and my gear. Cue manic high-speed-get-the-scope-indoors-before-its-soaked action. Grrrr.

Still, I did get a bit of a look at the NPC and some other surface detail before the weather thwarted me. Personally I had better luck a few nights back. Hopefully tomorrow night will be better weather here....

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russ

russ

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Nothing particularly special about tonight, Mars will be well placed for a few weeks yet.

Other than it's my first clear night for two weeks and the weather forecast is awful from midnight Saturday.....so on reflection i would say it is pretty special.

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