mars 19th - 20th feb 2010

[chrisrnuttall]

Here is a sketch from Friday night, 23:00 to 01:30

weather was calm, about zero degrees, mild frost forming, thin high patchy cloud, seeing very good. Probably the sharpest view of Mars I have ever had.

Running through the disc from left to right are Mare Sirenum, Mare Cimmerium, and Mare Erythraeum.

The three bright ares above are (I think) Electris, Eridana, Ausonia.

In the centre are Propontis, Phlegra, Elysium, and Alcyonius.

The bright area to the right is cloud / mist. On the lower left is the tharsis area, and i am not sure about the brightening to the upper left.

projecting out of the band around the NPC is Utopia and Casius.

Mars was 13 arc seconds, 51 degrees altitude, 98 percent phase.

I recorded main details at 273X, and the switched to 375X to which revealed a little more, but not much.

Filters used wetre dark red for the dark ares, dark green for overall contrast, and dark blue for the white features. I tried the violet filter but it did not reveal any more features.

[Towa]

Lovely drawing Chris.

It's interesting to see how the colour of mars appears in different telescopes. Last night with my 76mm f/16, it had the most wonderful peachy /red colour,

while the larger 150mm scope gave it more bright yellowish tint.

[dweller25]

Very nice drawing Chris, Mars has been great this time around.

[DarkerSky]

I really like that Chris. What was the central meridian longitude?

[chrisrnuttall]

thanks for the comments,

acording to Mars previewer 2, the CM was 199.6 degrees when i started my sketch, I fixed the positions at that time, then spent the rest of the session squeezing the details out.