Category: Planetary

Mars – February 10, 2010

Mars - February 10, 2010
Mars – February 10, 2010
Sketch and Details by Andrew Watkinson-Trim

Pencil sketch at eyepiece with text added later. This is my first attempt at drawing Mars and also “first light” for my Skywatcher 127mm Mak’. The improvement on my old 102 SLT Celestron reflector was very marked. The seeing was reasonable, but the manual Alt/Az mount necessitated frequent repositioning of the object. This is an example of a “snatched” observing session showing that something worthwhile can be achieved in 10 minutes without dark-adaptation. I was delighted to be able to confirm the accuracy of this drawing because a friend was imaging Mars with his 8 inch Newtonian at the same time.

AWT

Vesta visits the neck of the Lion

Vesta
Vesta and Algieba
Sketch and Details by Jef De Wit

Asteroid 4 Vesta reaches opposition on 20 February when it will be opposite the Sun in the sky, making it well placed for observation. At mag. +6.1, this 530 km-diameter space rock is right on the threshold of naked eye visibility from a site with very dark and clear skies (not the case for my backyard L).
Vesta looks just like a star when seen through a telescope and is easily confused with other stars in the area. But on 16 February the asteroid was very easy to spot. It passed almost exactly between Algieba (gamma Leonis) and the fainter 40 Leonis (mag. +4.8) that lies just to the south.
Algieba is nice double star (mag. +2.2 and +3.5, separated by 4.4”) that was easily split. I had trouble seeing colour in the double star. Although both stars are reported as yellow, only the western part looked a little bit yellow to me. The eastern star looked rather bluish.

Source: Sky at Night, February 2010

Clear skies
Jef De Wit

Object Name: Vesta
Object Type: asteroid
Location: Hove, Belgium (51°09’ north lat. 4°28’ east long.)
Date and time: 16 February 2010 around 22.30 UT
Equipment: Orion Optics UK 12” Dobson
Eyepiece: 13mm Nagler T6 (magnification 92x)
FOV sketch: approx 25’
NELM: 4,5 mag
Medium: graphite pencil HB/n°2, printing paper, scanned and inverted, some cleaning up was made with Paint

Mars – January 30, 2010

Mars - January 30, 2010
Mars – January 30, 2010
Sketch and Details by Oscar Ll. (Almach)

Mars with a CAT 5″ (2010-1-30) – Sketch by Oscar Ll. (Nickname: almach)

This is an example of how we can see these days Mars with a 5? telescope.

The real sketch is at bottom beside the magnification (250x, near the
limits of my telescope). It was made quickly with Photoshop. And only
for the beginners? this is more or less the size and details that you
can expect observing Mars with an aperture of 5?.

At the center, and very big, my sketch with a simple pencil.

And at the top a symbolic picture do it with my DBK21AU04.AS.

Object Type: Planet
Location: Barcelona – Spain
Date and Time: 2010-01-30, 22h 31m UT
Telescope: SC Celestron Nexstar 5i (5″)
Eyepiece: 5mm (250x)
White paper, HB2 graphite pencil, and scanned with Photoshop
Seeing: 4/5 (5 the best)
Transparency: Some clouds. Moderate light pollution.
Location Constellation: Cancer

Thank you and best regards.

Oscar

Mars – Le 4 Février 2010

Mars - February 4, 2010
Mars – February 4, 2010
Sketch and Details by Christian Gros

Bonsoir,

Ci joint un dessin de la planète Mars réalisé à l’aide de ma lunette 120ED avec des grossissements allant de x252 à x360.
Le dessin a été fait aux crayons pastels.

Object Name : Mars
Object Type : Planet
Location : Besançon France
Date : 2010/04/02

Salutations

Christian Gros

Mars – February 2, 2010

Mars - February 2, 2010
Mars – February 2, 2010 – CM 93° – 100°
Sketch and Details by Michael Rosolina

I made this observational sketch of the Red Planet during a recent break in the wintry weather here. I was happy to catch Mars not long after its closest approach to Earth, while the planet still had an angular diameter of 14 arcseconds. That is as big at Mars will appear this apparition and still pretty small for visual observations.

Seeing the ice cap and signs of atmospheric clouds always reminds me of the similiarities between Mars and our own planet–perhaps why observers are always drawn to train their telescopes on that bright, ruddy dot in the sky.

I made this sketch at the eyepiece using 2B and HB pencils to render the dark albedo features and to make the schematic next to the full drawing. I then came inside and immediately added the color, using orange ochre, yellow, peach, and blue color pencils. After scanning, I added the text and notes.

Mars
Planet
Friars Hill, WV USA
February 2, 2010

Clear skies,

Michael Rosolina

Mars – January 31, 2010

Mars - January 31, 2010
Mars – January 31, 2010
Sketch and Details by Charles Galdies

Object : Planet Mars
Date : January 31, 2010
Time : 21:00 UT
Location : Malta; http://www.znith-observatory.blogspot.com
Instrument : 200 SCT / 12mm / 2.5x barlow / orange filter

Tonight the first albedo features spotted were Mare Sabaeus and Sinus Meridiani. The slight kink at Edom was visible.

S. Meridiani and S. Sabaeus show a darker albedo than the Iapigia and Mare Serpentis regions. Deucalionis region was also slightly visible.

The next most prominent feature was Syrtis Major, with a pointed tip and its ‘triangular’ darker albedo next to a lighter region connecting to Mare Tyrrhenium.

The extended tip of Boreosyrtis extending from Ortygia was slightly evident.

Extending from Utopia at around 20 degrees a subtle feature was evident which corresponds to Mare Acidalium. While observing, I was not so sure whether to sketch this due to its low contrast. However, official Mars maps show its correct positioning as that of M. Acidalium.
The polar cap was very evident.

Observation of Mars through blue filter (#38A) showed the presence of the lighter polar cap, as well as the lighter Arabia region and along the limb.

Mars – January 1, 2010

Mars
Mars – January 1, 2010
Sketch and Details by Kris Smet

Only average seeing last night, but a few good moments allowed to make a quick sketch!

Syrtis Major looked interesting, the light dessert seemed to run into Syrtis Major just above Moeris Lacus (?) the tip ended with a curved hook to the left. Hellas was the second brightest feature after the polar ice. seeing wasn’t stable enough to see any clouds over Lybia or Aeria though (left and right of Syrtis Major).

The dark plains Utopia and Boreo Syrtis above the NPC. Nodus Alcyonius was also visible at momenst of good seeing, Aetheria wasn’t however.

A lighter region, the division between Mare Cimmerium & Mare Tyrrhenum was quite easy to spot.

I chose to use the 8″ with the fan running during the sketch and an hour before because temperatures dropped to (i guess) 4 or 5°C minus.

Mars is big enough now to allow some great views if seeing cooperates!

01/01/10
location: bornem, belgium

Mars – January 11, 2010

Mars - January 11, 2010
Mars – January 11, 2010
Sketch and Details by Juan Perez (Juanchin)

Object : Planet Mars
Date : January 11, 2010
Time : 23:30 LST / 06:30 UT
Location : El Mirage Arizona USA
Instrument : CPC 1100 / 10 & 7mm Plossl’s
Magnitude : -.7 (Stellarium)
Weather : Chilly night but pleasant, upper 40’s, clear sky!

Mars is an eyecatcher for several reasons; Mars is simply at that time of its orbital cycle where it is closest to Earth and also closest
to the Sun – perihelion. Earth’s position is in the middle thus we say that Mars is at opposition. These two opportunities are not to be
missed, for Mars increases in disc size and becomes brighter by having fuller illumination of its surface by the Sun. For those of us in
the Northern hemisphere, how could you not resist pointing your telescope directly above your head and focus on the orange glowing
planet.
At 13.6 arc-seconds it doesn’t rival its disc size like that of 2003 when it increased to almost twice its size, 25 arc-seconds in
diameter.Even though I lack the eagle vision that a few of you ASOD regulars posses, I was still able to distinguish just a few albedo
features. The South and North polar caps were highly pronounced along with a stretch of bright limb haze around the edge of the disc.
The dark collar which follows the NPC was visible although it varied in its intensity, guessing from turbulence in the Earth’s atmosphere.
The most striking and noticeable dark region was that of Syrtis Major.I spent a few hours trying to work my eyesight in search of any
other subtle details which I ended alphabetizing on the sketch.
Again, Mars is at the center of attention this month and it beckons us to explore its surface details with those optical instruments.
Give it a try, for Mars is looking up! 😀

Mars – January 12, 2010

Mars - January 12, 2010
Mars – January 12, 2010
Sketch and Details by Szabó Ádám

Location: Hungary, Hódmezővásárhely
Date: 12th January 2010
Medium: digital drawing
Instrument: 6″ f/5 Newton (Celestron Omni XLT) @ 250× magn.
S:8-9 T:3-4

Hi

This is my second try to make a digital drawing about Mars. The pencil sketch for this drawing was made between 01:30 and 01:50 UT. I used a 14 color palette and a variety of partially transparent and different sized “brushes” for the digital drawing.

Best regards: Ádám