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Subject: [M]: OT: OBSERVING Mars and Jupiter
From: Todd Gross
Reply To: mapug@shore.net
Date: Wed Aug 13 03:07:37 1997
First of all, the original poster may be under the impression that Mars is
available to view
right now..which is not really true.. at only around 6 arc seconds,
exceptional scopes and exceptional
(steady air) nights are required to make out detail.
Secondly.. Jupiter, most commonly, under very stable conditions.. will show
just that.. a few bands in most
Meade SCTs. The red spot visible but somewhat difficult to detect. I had a
really good 10" LX200 that showed
the red spot clearly, and my current Ultima 2000 8" shows much more detail
than that (see my web page
http://www.weatherman.com for an example of a 16" view that shows a bit more
than the 8") but is exceptional
quality wise, AND I waited day after day for great "seeing" conditions.
In response to Allen's post below:
>I have a 10" LX-200 f/10 and when the seeing is good and Mars is in opposition
>there is lots of detail. Last spring the air was exceptionally stable one
>night and using a 5mm eyepiece (500x) I was able to see several surface
features
>including both polar caps. It was easy to make out the shapes of some of
the dark
>features. I only wish I could have photographed what I was seeing.
Great stuff, just can't help but correcting you. You did NOT see the south
polar cap, it was the feature:
Hellas..which was even brighter at times than the north polar cap. If you
waited a few hours, you would have
noticed it would magically disappear. Hellas appears when Syrtis Major does,
and you undoubtably were
viewing that as well, which is the easiest feature on Mars to see.
As for Saturn.. get your scopes out and do the test!!! It's Cassini.. I can
make it out in the better scopes at this ring tilt, but not the ho-hum ones.
The Cassini division is about 2/3-3/4 of the way out towards the edge of the
rings, and is available only when seeing is very good (6-7 out of 10)
- Todd
_________________________________
BOSTON TV METEOROLOGIST TODD GROSS
Weather/Astronomy Home Page: http://www.weatherman.com
Administrator, Meade User Group: mapug@shore.net & NE Weather Watcher Mail
List, wxobs-sne@shore.net
IRC Channel Operator: #Weather, #Sciastro (Undernet) // Originator
of the NE.WEATHER newsgroup
_________________________________
Email: toddg@weatherman.com Work Phone# (617)725-0777