Mars scope first light 07-Aug-2003

Hi, all -

Had first light in my new homemade 8" f/8 Newt yesterday morning. Seeing wasn't great, I'm sure partially because here in SE Michigan Mars is culminating at only around 34 degrees altitude these days (and getting lower BTW). There were very brief moments when the air would settle and I could see more detail, but they were too few and far between to record reliably. Here's the sketch I made.

Doug

Attached Image:

Doug, Very nice drawing. Who are the optics by? DR

Very nice! All right, another long-newt fan! :-)

As far as seeing goes, IMO sketching during subpar or even 'lousy' seeing is highly useful even just from a practice & eye-conditioning standpoint. Helps one to see much more when conditions are good or 'excellent'.

Doug,

An excellent sketch of Mars, even for a seasoned observer. You have captured the shapes and intensities of the major albedo features very well. The South Polar Cap (SPC) is well rendered and you even indicated a bright zone within it (dashed lines). Please keep up the good work.

I believe the 8-inch (f/6-8) Newtonian reflector to be the instrument which would please the majority of planetary observers for a lifetime. This size instrument has enough aperture to resolve most features over the planets, but small enough to beat the average seeing cell (~10 inches). I have owned an excellent 8-inch F/7.5 Newtonian for many years which I made many planetary observations with. Here are some from the 1996-97 Mars apparition http://astrosun.tn.cornell.edu/marsnet/imw96-97.html

Happy Mars Observing!

Carlos