Posts Made By: Bruce Housey

Hello, Mike.

My vote is on the 9.25" SCT, mostly because public viewers always tend to grab at the scope and eyepiece, and on an SCT that will be closer to the center of rotation and won't be pushed as easily. Also the tracking will make things a lot easier for you.

You might also put on the dewshield if you have one and extend the legs far so the corrector is out of reach if children will be present... that clean multi-coated glass sure attracts children's hands quickly! :^)

Bruce.

Well, I got to take a longer, more magnified picture thursday night to get a little more detail on the Hellas area. The brighter area is still visible, but not nearly as dramatic. Either it changed, or (more likely) the area appears especially bright when near the limb.

Assuming it's frost, like Ron suggested, I'd imagine it's reflecting the sun more from that angle causing the bright effect.

Bruce.

That's a good one, with bright Europa over a dark band... last year was tough for spotting Europa during transits since they were above the bright equatorial zone then. I can't wait to catch one visually this year.

Great pictures... thanks for sharing your work!

Bruce.

Fantastic sketch, Sol. You're really capturing a tremendous amount of detail... I can't imagine how you can concentrate that well at that hour especially when it's so cold!

Thanks for giving a great view to those of us who spent the night in bed listening to rain!

Bruce.

Ron Bee said:

...My Light Cup has seduced me to the dark side of the imaging force ;-)....

Nothing to fear, Ron, you may come back someday. I too was seduced to the dark side a few years ago, and spent much of the 2003 Mars apparation letting a webcam get lots of eyepiece time. But for my first view of Mars this year I also did a sketch! Now I just have to learn to completely leave the webcam in the house.

Bruce.

http://members.cox.net/bhousey/mars_20050723.jpg

An entertaining and informative discussion on ghost craters all collected into this one article... good job, Ron!

Bruce.

Ron Bee said:

...Please tell me which one you like, the afocal one (on the right) or the one with 5X Powermate....

Very impressive, Ron! In my brief time owning an NP127 I wasn't able to get very good high-power results. You've really gotten up to speed on the webcam stuff quickly! (you did just start doing this, right?)

Although the image scale on the left image is impressive, I vote for the image on the right because it is more like what I've seen in the eyepiece.

Keep up the great work!
Bruce.

p.s. you mention this is the continuation of your report... could you please point me to the original report, Ron, since I'd love to read it!

Carlos:

I always enjoy reading your reports while looking at the sketch you made... it really helps me reinforce the more obscure albedo features and gives me something to strive for next time I look. If I keep reading your reports, I'll soon be able to pick out more Martian features on a map than Earth ones! :^)

Bruce.

I was anxious to get out this morning to see the huge dust storm that had started developing monday in the Chryse area. This event is particularly exciting because I am fortunate enough to have Chryse pointing toward Earth while Mars is passing over New Orleans this morning. Indeed this is the best view of that region during this great 2005 apparition, since the disk of Mars is now a whopping 19.7 arcseconds, and it will be less than 18 arcseconds when Chryse rotates around again at the end of November, and then not be this large again until 2018!

The huge dust storm was immediately obvious where it crossed over the dark Margaritifer Sinus area in the shape of a horseshoe. I spent a couple of minutes looking at it before taking a picture of the event. The sketch shows the tiny white South Polar Cap at the top with Mare Erythraeum below it, and then Margaritifer Sinus below that with the bright yellow dust storm encroaching over it. Below that is the light Chryse area, and then down further the dark Niliacus Lacus, and finally a bluish North Polar Hood, still unusually large. Also Solis Lacus, the "eye of Mars", was obvious on the right side.

The color contrasts of the SPC (white), dust storm (yellow), and NPH were particularly striking over the salmon and moss disk of the planet. Seeing was a little unsteady as the cooler October air moves in, with complete resolution only about 1 second every 10 seconds.

The processed images show more of the storm over the lighter areas of Mars that I could not detect visually. The full storm appears to have a serpentine shape, as is obvious in the enlarged, enhanced view. I'll be anxious to see how this storm develops!