At 10:33 PM -0700 5/16/99, Kip Peterson wrote:
... whether I was actually seeing
>the poles or not. I could easily discern darker areas on the disc. I
>believe I could make out two small whitish areas 180 degrees apart,
>occupying the positions of about 1:30 and 7:30 as viewed on a clock face...

Well, if you think about it unless the geometry is just perfect (and
it isn't right now) you can only see one of the poles at any one
time. In fact, right now Mars's north pole is in the Earth-facing
hemisphere and will remain so throughout this opposition. That's the
very small spot at 1:30. What you saw at 7:30 may have been Argyre
Planitia but it's hard to tell without knowing exactly when you were
viewing.

Bill Arnett
http://www.seds.org/billa/
"I know that I am mortal and the creature of a day; but when I search
out the massed wheeling circles of the stars, my feet no longer touch
the earth, but, side by side with Zeus himself, I take my fill of
ambrosia, the food of the gods." -- Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy)

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