The Dutch Observatory

The first time this year where the weather was nice (56 degrees) and the sky was clear.  However when I started imaging, the seeing turned out much to wish for.  Seeing was not good, so the images turned out very washed out.  I started with my WO barlow and all extensions and followed up with the Klee 3x barlow.  The latter could not coop with the jittering image, so only used the first run which is at f/32. 

The transparency and seeing were a little better than average today, so I made a few runs after I came home from dropping the Sky Quality Meter of in Loganville.  Here an image showing almost the identical CM as yesterday, just a few degrees off.  The image shows that the clouds have intensified a little.

The weather starts to cooperate a little better!  After coming home from making 12 Dark Sky Quality measurements in Newton ad Walton counties, I still had time to make three images of Mars.  Here one of them.  Lots of cloud activity!  Clouds can be seen over Alba Patera, the volcanos Ascraeus Mons, and Pavonis Mons and clouds extending in the Valles Marineris at the P-limb

Last night was the last oportunity again for a few days to image Mars.  The conditions we a little better than Friday with the seeing going to maybe 4/10.  I experienced still some wind gusts, but the planes from Atlanta were gone. (Thanks Stephen, I know you were not working ).  The “boring” side of Mars again, but some nice clouds or dust streaks are visible.  A nice cloud visible over Amazonis almost on the CM, and clouds extending North of Olympis Mons and Pavonis Lacus.  A nice streak extends just south of the NPC.

The weather has been very bad again for almost a week.  Yesterday I tried to image Mars and made 4 runs but the result were pretty bad, so I did not post them.  The same as I did last week twice.  Today the conditions were a little better although I did not think seeing came above 2/10 because of occasional winds, the jetstream, and my buddy Stephen Ramsden kept sending those planes departing Atlanta over my house, in fact it looked like he wanted to position them in the middle  between Mars and Pollux and he was pretty good at that.   The result was that all of the runs were impacted at least in one color by a vortex created by those planes.  Anyway, the seeing was not good anyway, so I forgive Stephen.  Here Mars on the 27th February around 2:13 UT

Finally!!   We had some “fantastic” seeing today compared to the conditions of the last many months.  I can’t remember any more when it was this nice.  The 150+ mile/hour winds of the jetstream above had moved around Atlanta and except for an occasional blurp, the image was steady.  With these conditions I had to try out an old barlow, a 3x Klee which let me image at f 38.  Something I have never done before, and which would have made some bad images in the very unstable conditions we’ve had.  The image shows clouds in Elysium, clouds at the morning limb and a streak of clouds south of the NPC.

It’s been a long time since we had half way decent conditions.  Tonight’s transparency was a little over average, but seeing was still low because if high winds.  Here my image of Mars from today. Clouds visible over Utopia, Arabia and at the evening limb. 

We had some “clear” skies after yesterday’s rain, but the next front was moving in fast. I managed to get a few images while some thin layers of clouds passed through. Seeing was fair but very humid and freezing. After three runs, my corrector plate started to freeze over and I had to stop before the clouds moved in again.  For this image I replaced the Celestron Shorty plus barlow with the cell of the Meade 140 2x barlow with an 4″ extention.

Yesterday I also ran some imaging tests.  I should have done this a lot earlier, but better late than never .  I used the Williams Optics which I have used a lot lately and replaced the Celestron Shorty which produces pretty weak images with the Meade 140 2x.   I used this barlow almost 2 years ago to run some tests on Jupiter and I was pleased with the results.  However, the tests than were made with a borrowed barlow and I was not able to find one to purchase.  I now have acquired one and shown are some test results.  The 4 images are made with the CPC925 on a wedge, the DMK21AU04.AS and the Meade 140 2x barlow and the WO 2x barlow on extention rings of variable lenght as noted.  It shows that not only this is a good barlow for me for Jupiter as in last year’s tests, but also for Mars.

Mars, the evening before opposition.  It does not look like the conditions will allow to image tomorrow when Mars is at opposition, so here is Mars one day before.  The conditions were variable with high clouds passing through as well as an  occasional Con-trail from the planes leaving Atlanta airport.  The CM is almost the same as yesterday and the images have been made again with the Meade 140 with some extra rings added.  As always, click the thumbnail for the larger image.