Mars – Page 10 – Astronomy Sketch of the Day

The Many Faces of a Red Desert World

Mars opposition 2007/8 and composite sketch
By Marcin Marczyński

Mars opposition 2007/8

These superb sketches of the 2007-2008 Mars opposition were
submitted by Marcin Marczyński of Lezno, Poland. The beautiful
precision he used to render these sketches are a tribute to his
keen observational skills and an artist’s talent at portraying in
graphite pencil, precisely what he sees at the eyepiece. Marcin’s
notes below each sketch are wonderfully concise, yet quite
informative.

Here are Marcin’s sketch details:

Location: Leszno, Poland
Telescope: Sky-Watcher 8″ dob.
Eyepieces: S.Plossl 10mm(120x), Antares Orto.6mm(200x)
white paper, 2B pencil

The map is a handmade combination of above sketches.
Regards
Pozdrawiam!

Marcin Marczyński

Mars through the Fog

Mars through the Fog December 19th, 2007
By Frank McCabe

Initially this observing night began iffy at best. A layer of mid-level thin
clouds along with some ice fog made the view of the moon poor in contrast. Both
Mars and the moon took turns appearing and disappearing behind clouds. When I
caught a look at Mars through the fog I realized the transparency although poor,
was improving the seeing of the Martian low contrast features in a positive way. I
was able to use a 4mm orthoscopic ocular at 360x on Mars for sketching. I tried
several filters but the fog was providing the only filter I really needed.
The central meridian was 341° and the planet was nearly 100% illuminated. The
angular size of Mars on this night was 15.9” of arc. Mars was shining through the
clouds at magnitude -1.6. No stars below 3rd magnitude were visible. The most
prominent features visible included: the bright North Polar Hood; and the
following dark features: Syrtis Major about to rotate out of view; Iapygia
Viridis; Mare Serpentis; Sinus Sabaeus; and Sinus Meridiani. This was my first
Mars sketch in two years.

Sketching: White sketching paper 9”x 9”; 4H, B, HB, and 2H Graphite pencils; I
used my fingers for blending.
Date 12/19/2007 – 4:30-5:00 UT
Telescope: 10 inch f/5.7 Dobsonian and 4mm eyepiece 360x
Temperature: -3°C (27°F)
mostly cloudy, fog, calm
Seeing: Antoniadi II

My First Mars!

Mars, 11-14-07
By Wade V. Corbei

Well I’ll be dipped….I finally had clear enough seeing conditions AND pumped up the power and actually was able to see some detail on the red planet!!! I was tickled to death!

I don’t have any filters at the moment, so through the EP the color seemed a yellowish-creamy-orange. I tried to replicated the color as close as I could. It may not be exact, but I wanted to be careful as not too add a false red/orange color that differed from what I actually observed in the EP.

The black markings (plains?) were quite distinct although a little muted.

My first Mars of any sort.

The Many Faces of Mars

Mars opposition 2007-2008
By Kris Smet

I started observing Mars early in July to make the most of the opposition in
December when the planet’s disk reached almost 16“. However the first few sketches
may not look like much, I believe making the sketches helped me gain more experience
over the months. Putting the colour of mars on paper was much harder than I thought
it would be, I’ve tried a few different colours but kept changing them because I
wasn’t completely happy with it. The last sketch in my opinion looks most as how
mars appears to my eye in the scope. (All sketches were done with my 8” f/5
reflector on equatorial mount btw, I didn’t took the tube from the dobson base until
October though.)

All sketches are made outside sitting at the scope, with plain A4 printer-paper on a
clipboard on my lap. After the scope is brought back inside I work the sketch out
with colours and scan them in on my computer. The only ‘processing’ I (sometimes) do
is adjusting the brightness and sharpness levels a bit to look a bit more
eyepiece-like.

If you look very closely you can see the small disappearing south polar cap on the
first 5 sketches, after that I couldn’t detect it anymore. During September and the first part of October the north polar hood appeared bluish to me, but it seemed to disappeared and on the 14 October sketch the hood doesn’t show any blue.

While Mars was showing me it’s so called ‘boring side’ during September and October
(accept 5/10 & 31/10) I had the impression that the area south of mare Sirenum,
Cimmerium and Mare Tyrrherium was brighter and more yellow than the desert plains
laying south of them.

In December I had some very good views of the Syrtis Major region in which I could
see some detail. I had to wait until early 2008 to get my first view of the Solis
Lacus region, because whenever this side was facing earth I was clouded out :p

I hope to get more viewing time during January, February and perhaps March to make
another ‘collage’ of Mars sketches.

A Feast in the Martian Desert

Mars
By Sol Robbins

In describing his sketching technique for recent Mars sketches, Sol noted:

It occurs to me that there is a bit of a change taking place in my sketches. One change is in regard to the paper I am using which is very smooth. It is from Office Depot, Super White Platinum Series. That’s in concert with using just a 2H pencil.

Seems like I can get a range of gray tones that are pretty close to each other. These tones are evident in that last couple of Mars sketches which shows my newer ability to render details in light and dark albedo features with more subtlety. This paper accepts and holds on to graphite in a very controllable way.

It holds up well to rubbing when working up details which helps a lot in allowing a wider range of lifting or erasing graphite quickly. Blends smoothly too. Gray tones can be worked up faster.

I guess all of the above just adds up to being able to have a perceivable/scanable depth or richness when working on computer print out paper with a simple pencil. Blending stumps work very well on this paper too.

Its a 20 lb paper and acid free.

November Mars in Subtle Salmon

Mars
By John Karlsson

This was a great night, clear and fairly calm for where I live here in Vernon BC Canada. I couldn’t pass up sketching this one. It was late and I had to get up for work at 6:30. I only wish I had better optics to give me some more contrast. I did however use my variable polarizing filter to bring down the contrast. It was glaringly bright.

John

Note: John used Crayola pencil crayons to create realistic color for this sketch. He blended the colors lightly to prevent streaks from showing as much as possible. John layed down a peach base first, and overlapped this with a layer of orange. He applied shading for the dark albedo features using a blending stump loaded with graphite from a 2H pencil.

The Eye of the Coppery Orb

Mars
Terrestrial Planet
By Eric Graff
Parks Astrolight EQ6 • 6″ f/6 Newtonian Reflector
7.5mm Parks Gold Series Plössl + 2x Barlow • 240x, 13′ FoV
30 September 2007 • 12:30-13:00 UT

The December 2007 opposition of Mars will pale in comparison to the very favorable oppositions of 2003 and 2005, achieving a maximum angular diameter of 15.9″ on 18 December 2007. On the other hand, it will not appear this large again until the opposition of 2016; also, unlike the previous two favorable oppositions, the Red Planet rides high over the northern crest of the ecliptic, placing it nearly overhead as it crosses the meridian for northern hemisphere observers.

On 30 September 2007, the Martian disk measures a mere 9.6″ and still shows a strong gibbous phase (the disk is 87% illuminated). The central meridian (CM) at the time of observation was approximately 110°. The principal Martian surface features identified during this observation include the dusky circular feature Solis Lacus drifting toward the terminator and the dark band of Mare Sirenum emerging from the limb. The Tharsis plateau, home of Mars’ mighty shield volcanoes occupies the relatively featureless golden plain near the center of the disk. Bright patches were detectable in the vicinity of both the north and south poles; I’m not sure whether these are the actual polar ice caps or “polar hoods” which are atmospheric mists associated with the evaporation of the caps. A few other patches of haze were detected around the southern limb.

Canals and the skeptic

The above drawings show the canals and oases of Mars which in the late 19th
century became more prominent with the melting of the nearest polar cap or so it
was claimed at that time. In a never ending on going process, science progresses
by continuously cleaning out its closets of old incorrect information as new
observations and experiments reveal the errors. Our Earth continues to overtake
Mars for the rendezvous in December. Have you ever wondered what Schiaparelli,
Lowell, W. H. Pickering, Campbell, Hussey and others were seeing at the eyepiece
to draw the canale, channels or canals on the Mars sketches they made? The answer
may have been explained by Vincenzo Cerulli an Italian astronomer living at the
same time as Giovanni Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell. After the “canal skeptic”,
Cerulli studied Mars for a couple of oppositions, he found he could duplicate
the canals or lines seen by many Mars observers using opera glass to examine small
features on the moon.
This phenomenon is neither an illusion nor a real exact representation. It is the
eye and brain interacting to fill in small faint features. If you casually examine
the faces on USA paper currency you will see lines across the foreheads. If you
look again using a magnifying glass you can see these lines are dashes and dots. So
if you begin to see canals on Mars near the end of the year, its just you eyes and
brain conspiring to play tricks on you. The time to observe Mars again is just
beginning. Don’t forget to make drawings or log records.

The above drawings are from page 358 of David P. Todd’s, A New Astronomy © 1897,
American Book Company

Frank McCabe

Early Morning mars

I have attached my latest Mars sketch for your interest. This resulted from my 3rd
observation of Mars during this opposition. Unfortunately seeing was too poor
during the 2nd session to allow me to make a ‘reliable’ sketch.

I find observing in the early morning so invigorating and am always on a high
for the rest of the day following such an opportunity. As I have noted so often
before the view gets more detailed and contrasty as the dawn sky brightens. On
this occasion I noted a distinct brightening along the northern polar region
which I hope I have depicted agreeably in my sketch.

When I observe and sketch Mars I never research what I’m likely to see in case
some preconceived image might cloud my vision of reality at the eyepieces.

Dale Holt

Gibbous Ruby World

I had intended to catch up with Mars in June to begin my
observations and sketches of this exciting opposition.
Unfortunately a long run of poor weather in the UK prevented me
from doing this. Finally I caught up with the Red one early on the
morning of Sat 8th July. It was hard work but I sucked out some
detail in the end from the distant ruby planet.

Dale Holt

Here is the original SPA observation form with all the details about Dale’s sketch: