Vern’s Weblog

Mars this evening was amazing, both through the eyepiece and on the computer screen. Clear sky, no wind, low turbulence, and temperatures in the mid-thirties all helped to provide some excellent views. Atmospheric turbulence was between 7 and 8/10, as good as I’ve seen in Colorado. Images below taken with my usual setup, Nexstar11 on APT wedge, Baader UV/IR cut filter, Televue 5X Powermate, and Phillips Toucam 740K webcam. North up, east to the left in the image. Lots of detail visible in both the eyepiece and on the notebook’s computer screen. I could not spot the south polar cap in the eyepiece, though it does just barely show in this image. North polar haze was visible. Solis Planum easily spotted in the western central region as well as the long finger of Terra Serenum extending from the east. Time of this image was 10:52 MST, so the mars central meridian was 113 degrees, diameter is 18.4 arc-seconds, illuminated fraction is 98.9%. Mars is decreasing in size quite quickly now, an arc-second or so per week.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 20th, 2005 at 10:52 pm and is filed under Astronomy, Planetary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.