Mars – April 29, 2014Mars feature location and nomenclature chart – April 29, 2014
I made an observation of Mars on April 29, 2014 (03:30 U.T. or 11:30 PM EDT) using a 9-inch (23-cm) F/13.5 Maksutov-Cassegrain at 258x and 310x. Syrtis Major was prominent preceding the central Meridian (CM) with a cloud noted over its midsection flowing towards the East and into Libya (extending from an Equatorial Cloud Band (ECB) extending from from the following limb). The Hellas basin was noted to be very bright south of Syrtis Major towards the southern limb. Sinus Sabaeus was visible as a dark extension from the CM towards the South-following limb. The North Polar Cap (NPC) appeared small and brilliant. The NPC was surrounded by a dark collar. Dark to dusky maria was noted over the northern hemisphere of Mars. I have included an image that is labeled with the nomenclature of the majority of albedo features noted.I hope that you all like it.
Hello, here is a picture of Mars made with my Dobsonian Telescope 12 “equipped with a binocular , with a magnification of 500x. Viewing conditions were really excellent, which was rare in early spring … Many details were visible, including the famous Syrtis Major and Sinus Sabaeus visible right training up. I also observed a beautiful cloud formation on Elysium, left visible at sunset
Détails :
Object : Mars
Location : France (Vendée-Atlantic)
Date : 20/04/2014
Support : Mars Gabarit and Pencils Derwent Academy
Good reception and thank you for your interest
Best regard, Yohan Archambaud ( Vendée, France)
Mars in color – April 19, 2014Mars – April 19, 2014
Mars April 19 2014
Conditions were poor to average for viewing and sketching Mars. Mars is now at 15″ of arc and 0.62 A.U. from us. 99.4% of the disk is illuminated and shining at visual magnitude -1.4. The central meridian of Mars was centered at about 41.87° at the beginning time of the sketch.
Sinus Meridiani was visible near the limb on the preceding side. On this side clouds were visible over Eden. Mare Erythraeum, Margaritifer sinus and Aurorae sinus were all detectable to the south (up). Lighter Chryse could be seen at the equator with Niliacus Lacus, Mare Acidalium and Nilokeras blended together. Tharsis was under clouds on the following limb. The north polar cap is small in size and set apart by Mare Boreum.
Equipment and Sketching:
This is an eyepiece sketch made with a HB graphite pencil, blending stumps, White Pearl eraser on white sketching paper. The colorized sketch made indoors was completed using ground shavings of colored pencils (blue, orange, yellow, white)
Date 04/19/2014 – Time 05:00 – 05: 48 UT
Telescope: 13.1 inch f/5.9 Dobsonian and 9mm eyepiece 218x with a single polarizing filter and Neodymium filter used together; An Equatorial platform was also used
Hello my Friends ASOD, I observed a few days ago from the home to the neighboring planet, with good views, but with the pollution of the city there are no problems for red small. Continents showed well defined in my scope and feel free to make this sketch giving rise to the original on the right side shown in the image and colored on the other side giving a hue similar to that shown by the eyepiece, for further reducing the image and display framing the view. It was a nice domestic observation learning a little more about our sister planet perhaps.
Best Regards.
Object name: Mars
Object type: Planet
Location: Madrid ( Spain )
Date: 18 April 2014
Hour: 00:30 < 01:45
Media: graphite pencil, Tortillon, processed and inverted gimp 2.8
Optical equipment: Dobsonian telescope Meade Lightbridge 10'' F/5 Eye piece Ethos 8mm + Barlow 2x
Magnification 317x True field 0,3°
•Object Name (Mars)
•Object Type (Planet)
•Location (Artignosc sur Verdon – France)
•Date (April 15th)
•Media (Watercolour on white paper, digital tools Paint.Net for the text)
I use my 4” refractor (achromatic) f/10 – 200x to make the initial sketch; sadly the 12” Dobson give me less contrast for this target. Although the full Moon was very bright, (maybe more bright because of the clear sky of my new small village of Artignosc), details on Mars were easy to watch.
After making the first sketch, some locals came in my backyard to have a look, I like that, and sharing beauty is so easy to do.
For this image I use watercolour, on a very humid 300gr paper, I let the pigment floating as I saw the planet colours. The water helps me to give a natural look and feel. Of course this image has no any scientific value; this is just to keep a souvenir of this Mars close passage. Don’t try to compare the little details of my watercolour with reality; I let that to my astrophotography friends, they are so good today!
Planet Mars on sunday 13th of april 2014, sketch is made five days after mars was in opposition. We should expect that during opposition – april 8th – the smallest distance between our blue and the red planet is achieved. However, this time the two planets elliptical orbit reaches it’s closets distance on april the 14th.
The sketch is made on sunday the 13th of april 2014. The telescope : TEC 160ED, F8 – 11 mm Plossl eyepiece met 2x Barlow lens. TFov 0.3 °. Afterwards adapted in Pro-create en Psd
* Object Name: Mars
* Object Type: planet
* Location: La Fontasse (Tarn – France) N43.63 E2.35
* Date: April 6th 2014 21h40 UT
* Media: pencil HB + 2B, white drawing paper, scanned + colorized with PhotoPaint
As shown on the detailed view, I experimented the negative drawing with black pencil.
Just by inverting the image, I obtain quite the final result.
I just played with colour and contrast to make it “real”.
Next time I will try to make a negative drawing with blue pencil, to get directly the salmon colour of Mars…
NOTE : The pink colour is real, because of the lunar filter which adds a bluish-grayed hint
This filter provides more contrast and reduces the light intensity.
Conditions: humidity 60%, 12°C, no wind.
Equipment:
– Dobson Orion XT12 (305 x 1500mm => F/D 5)
– Eyepiece Televue Delos 4.5mm (mag x 330)
– Moon filter 1.25″
Excellent transparency and very good seing
Half Moon shining in Gemini
Because of the moonlight, the star party was dedicated to planetary observation.
So I decided to make my first sketch of Mars, as I only once could really see it with details last year.
For the first time I could distinctly see two dark zones : one butterfly shaped (right) and one banana shaped (left)
The sky was good enough to expect to see the north polar ice cap.
I actually saw a scattered brighter spot on the upper part of the disk.
As you never know the orientation of an object in your eyepiece, I decided this was the north pole ice cap of Mars.
Back home, while looking for the name of the dark zones (Acidalia Planitia & Meridiani Planum), I discovered that the north pole was on the right side of the disk.
So, what was this white spot ???
I found the explanation from a recent photo of Mars, on spaceweathergallery.com, showing a white cloud storm, in the same area.
This is how I discovered my new speciality: meteorologist of Mars ! 🙂
Thanks for your interest.
Jean-Marc Saliou
APAM astro club – France
* Object Type: planet
* Location: CASTRES (Tarn – France) 43° 36′ 19″ Nord2° 14′ 27″ Est
* Date: 5th February 2014 4hTU
* Media: pencil HB + 2B, white drawing paper, scanned + rescaled + colorized with PhotoPaint
Orientation: north is up
Conditions: 2°C, no wind. 70% humidity
Equipment:
– Dobson Pearl 203mm
– Eyepiece hypérion 5mm Mag 240X
Hello,
After à rainy and mainly cloudy winter ( just some clear nights with poor seeing …) last sunday before the dawn I get some reasonably average condition to observe Mars and to try my first drawing of the 2014 opposition, inspite the small diamètre (10.9″)
Hope many others will follow Emoji and perhaps if best condition occurs with my 22″ dobson
This was my most recent Mars observation from a few weeks ago. With only one or two clear nights since then, the timing was such that it prevented me from being able to crack open the observatory.
The early morning of the 7th, I had ample time to let the mirrors cool down on the telescope and collimated before dark. It was a little windy but had calmed down by 3am. Still, seeing wasn’t the best. I cold make out the NPC straight away and it appeared tucked in on the western and eastern edges more so than my observation the week prior. There was a definite dark streak above the NPC in my view and a few more darkened patches scattered around the disk. Very slight limb brightening on both the preceding (just prior to the terminator toward either pole) and following limbs.
I had to nudge the scope time and time again to let Mars slowly drift through my FOV before slight variances in albedo became apparent. It was nearly impossible for me to match them up with labeling programs such as Mars Previewer II or my Mars Globe app on my iPad because the two views on those programs were a little off from each other even though I checked the date, time and location several times. In the end, I went with Mars Previewer II since I’ve been using that program the longest.
I’m very much looking forward to more opportunities with Mars as it reaches opposition. If only my primary mirror was clean…sigh.
The sketch was created using charcoal on card stock, charcoal pencils, willow charcoal, vinyl eraser pencil and kneaded rubber eraser.
