Mars

We in galway were also out on thursday night, and a lovely clear warm night it was, made a few calls and 7 carloads of us ventured out to our dark viewing location in Connemera,with 3 telescopes. Yes mars was fantastic and the mars previewer2 was a useful tool, overall mars was a wonderfull sight, high above the Burren of co.Clare. Even with a bright Moon we saw many Perseid meteors some with dust tails and to cap it off we saw a -7 iridium flare. by far one of our best viewing sessions in many years. Ronan. Galway Astronomy Club

We had another look at Mars last night (Sunday 10th - Monday 11th), this time it was a club outing, approx 10 people showing due to the short notice as I didnt know which way the sky would turn, it ended up been a good one. From our site in mid county Limerick we can easily see as far as the Galtee mountains, anyway, we all had a good view of the Red planet, seeing again the polar cap and more southern "seas".
There was one 12" SCT, two 8"SCTs, a 3"Mak, a 4"Newtonian and an assortment of binoculars so everyone got a good view.
I hope we can get a nother look next weekend, and especially the weekend after. Keep your eyes in the skies for the perseids.

Was out observing Mars again last night (and hopefully tonight, fingers crossed!). One think that struck me was that the southern polar cap appeared to have got smaller over the last 4-6 weeks. Anyone else noticed this or was it just extreme exhaustion causing hallucinations??

Michael,
Polar cap getting smaller ??
I was looking at Mars again last night (friday 15th Aug) and I thought to myself that maybe the cap did look smaller, but I brushed it off as me imagining it !!!
Makes sence that it would be getting smaller as its hemisphere is in summer, but i really didn't think we could see it from here over the space of a few weeks. Might we be both imagining it ????
I'm trying to come up with an imaging reason (or why would we percieve it reason) for this .
Can anyone else confim our sightings, or shoot us down ???

Hello Everybody, i've just got an e-mail referring to this topic from observers of the Shallow Sky assn. It is a organisation for all solar system object lovers - why don't you join the e-mail list?? Popular topics are the moon & planets (obviously) www.shallowsky.com/shallow-sky.html

Here is a cut from an e-mail today - it refers to a polar cap shrinkage!

(Here's some good comparison images from several 2003 Mars images and a
couple from 2001. Noteworthy is the shrinking south polar cap this year plus
the lesser amounts of limb haze compared to 2001.
www.koyote.com/users/bobm/Mars.htm

Got my first look at Mars last night through my little 6.25" DTG Dobson.

I literally set it up on the side walk out side the house and started observing. In no time at all I had a crowd of interested (as in some cases drunk!) people around me.

I only have one eyepiece at the moment so I could only view it at 50x but I was pleased to be able to make out some surface details. I could clearly see a large dark region starting in the center of the disk and curving liek an upside down 'j' towards the top right of the image. I could also see a hint of the polar ice caps.


I have arranged to get some time on the Physics departments 11" scope over the weekend so fingers crossed it is clear! That should give me some stunning views!

Bart B.