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Mars tonight

 

Seeing was pretty rough as expected with a cold front coming in. It was not impossible to do any work on Mars but only the most rudimentary stuff. In short, the usual. I toggled between 239x and 197x. Takahashi TOE 3.3mm and Zeiss ZAO I 4mm respectively. As always, the polar cap and Mare Boreum were fairly obvious. Mare Boreum is the thin band of darker albedo surrounding the polar cap. Being spring, the cap is not particularly large. Seeing prevented seeing the darker areas at the bottom of the disc opposite the pole very clearly. It was there but that's all I could say about it. 30A magenta filter gave the most natural coloring. I did use an 82A Light blue to see if any clouds could be seen but none were visible to me. The 82A does light up the cap though. Syrtis Major has not been on the disc most of this observing year.

Selecting the right power is always a bit of a judgment call. At 197 the disc was sharper but seeing still presented a problem. At 239, seeing wasn't that much worse and the disc is larger so maybe you can wait for a moment of clarity. At least you have a larger disc to work with should the miracle occur. It did not BTW.

Good news this go around: Mars rides pretty high in the sky so less air to have to go through.
Bad news this go around: Mars is not as large as the last two apparitions.

Still fun and cold but nothing to get up granny about.
 

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Thanks Mark - always like to read your observations.

On 1/1/2025 10:38 PM, jimcoble2000 via groups.io wrote:

Seeing was pretty rough as expected with a cold front coming in. It was not impossible to do any work on Mars but only the most rudimentary stuff. In short, the usual. I toggled between 239x and 197x. Takahashi TOE 3.3mm and Zeiss ZAO I 4mm respectively. As always, the polar cap and Mare Boreum were fairly obvious. Mare Boreum is the thin band of darker albedo surrounding the polar cap. Being spring, the cap is not particularly large. Seeing prevented seeing the darker areas at the bottom of the disc opposite the pole very clearly. It was there but that's all I could say about it. 30A magenta filter gave the most natural coloring. I did use an 82A Light blue to see if any clouds could be seen but none were visible to me. The 82A does light up the cap though. Syrtis Major has not been on the disc most of this observing year.

Selecting the right power is always a bit of a judgment call. At 197 the disc was sharper but seeing still presented a problem. At 239, seeing wasn't that much worse and the disc is larger so maybe you can wait for a moment of clarity. At least you have a larger disc to work with should the miracle occur. It did not BTW.

Good news this go around: Mars rides pretty high in the sky so less air to have to go through.
Bad news this go around: Mars is not as large as the last two apparitions.

Still fun and cold but nothing to get up granny about.
 

Not much of one last night. Since Mars is about the same rotation as we are you get the same face for nights in a row.

On Thursday, January 2, 2025 at 11:08:32 AM EST, Ian Stewart <ian@...> wrote:


Thanks Mark - always like to read your observations.

On 1/1/2025 10:38 PM, jimcoble2000 via groups.io wrote:
Seeing was pretty rough as expected with a cold front coming in. It was not impossible to do any work on Mars but only the most rudimentary stuff. In short, the usual. I toggled between 239x and 197x. Takahashi TOE 3.3mm and Zeiss ZAO I 4mm respectively. As always, the polar cap and Mare Boreum were fairly obvious. Mare Boreum is the thin band of darker albedo surrounding the polar cap. Being spring, the cap is not particularly large. Seeing prevented seeing the darker areas at the bottom of the disc opposite the pole very clearly. It was there but that's all I could say about it. 30A magenta filter gave the most natural coloring. I did use an 82A Light blue to see if any clouds could be seen but none were visible to me. The 82A does light up the cap though. Syrtis Major has not been on the disc most of this observing year.

Selecting the right power is always a bit of a judgment call. At 197 the disc was sharper but seeing still presented a problem. At 239, seeing wasn't that much worse and the disc is larger so maybe you can wait for a moment of clarity. At least you have a larger disc to work with should the miracle occur. It did not BTW.

Good news this go around: Mars rides pretty high in the sky so less air to have to go through.
Bad news this go around: Mars is not as large as the last two apparitions.

Still fun and cold but nothing to get up granny about.
 

100% agree. I used my 6" ES AR152 refractor instead of the C11. It was indeed "rough" as you said. On nights like this, I get my astro 'fix' from Jupiter b/c no matter how bad the seeing is, it's tough for The 'King Planets' to disappoint.
 

That's how it goes it seems. Red spot tonight on Jupiter around 10. I have an AR 152 but have not had much luck getting the power up for planets that require higher power. I do like it for deep sky though.

Usually for solar system stuff and doubles I use my 2004 Stellarvue 102mm LOMO doublet or my ES 127 carbon triplet. Fortunately you can only use so much power on Jupiter anyways so actually my old (1989)? Stellarvue 80/9D achro does a pretty credible job for a quick look. I just ignore the purple. or use a 56A green filter. It has good detail for what was originally intended to be a good beginners scope. It actually is a very good scope by any standards.

I don't expect mars to be like it was a couple of apparitions ago. It was low then but fairly larger in diameter. The best view ever, in a couple of decades worth, was with Kent's Takahashi 6 inch The last go around. We had one exceptional night and his 6 inch is a planet killer (albeit at great cost). Jupiter through that scope has to be seen. It is amazing.

On Thursday, January 2, 2025 at 11:44:47 AM EST, Troy Riedel via groups.io <troy.riedel@...> wrote:


100% agree. I used my 6" ES AR152 refractor instead of the C11. It was indeed "rough" as you said. On nights like this, I get my astro 'fix' from Jupiter b/c no matter how bad the seeing is, it's tough for The 'King Planets' to disappoint.

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