Mars - 15th May 2010

[dweller25]

Mars for me is now sinking rapidly towards some tall trees so I thought I would have one last drawing session.

Even at x373 with active cooling and spot on collimation Mars was very small and difficult.

The North polar cap could just be made out as a bright (no longer white) smudge. The hood surrounding the NPC could be seen only as a large dark area.

Two darker areas on the preceding limb had a very bright (brighter than the NPC) area between them which could have been limb haze ?

Amazonis looked a little brighter than the Tharsis region.

My overall impression is that Mars is now beyond the limit of my 8" scope.

Observation details :-

15th May 2010 at 20:45UT.

Skywatcher 8" F/6 Newtonian with active cooling.

Klee x2.8 barlow with 9mm Orthoscopic giving x373.

Seeing = III, CM = 96'

[DarkerSky]

Fantastic observation Dweller - albeit a bit spooky! I decided quite late on that I would do a Mars observation Sat evening too instead of finishing off a sketch of M12 I started last week! I was out a bit later - my CM had moved about 20 degrees over from yours.

I found it very challenging in the 16", so I think you have done exceptionally well to pull out what you have. I too saw the darker areas next to a large area of limb haze on the SE limb. I also saw a smaller bright area next to the dull NPC, which was only really noticeable because of the hood shading.

Its quite a thing to think that we are now observing Martian summertime in the northern hemisphere having followed it through the spring

[dweller25]

Thanks Seb. It's been wonderful following mars through winter, spring and summer. The change to the NPC has been amazing. Trees are now going to stop me but the 8" has run out of fizz too so keep the drawings coming from your yard cannon. It will be interesting to see how much longer the extra aperture shows detail.

[John]

It's nice to see a drawing of Mars as it was last night as I was also looking at it with my 6" refractor. I believe the disk is only 6 seconds of an arc in diameter now and, like you, I found any details extremly tough to discern and even then they were only the vaguest suggestions of markings.

I think I really only observed the planet "for old times sake" being honest

You did very well to produce that drawing - thanks for posting it

I think the next opposition is March 2012 when Mars will be in Leo but not quite reaching the maximim apparent diameter that it did this time around.