The Dutch Observatory

Finally, after almost two weeks of clouds, rain, clouds and more rain, we got a short break.  Thursday morning we had a brief opportunity to see Mars again through a thin layer of high clouds just enough to get one reasonable run.  The others were completely mis-ballanced for the different channels. It appears that some orographic cloulds can be seen forming around Taterus Montes (green and blue images).

The first night of the winter where we had frost (25°F) at the Dutch Observatory. The humidity was high, 85%, and I had to interrupt twice to keep the frost off the corrector plate.  I am pretty happy with the image at average seeing and transparency.  Clouds can be seen over Cydonia extending to Niliacus Lacus and Mare Acidalium.

Got up at 3:00am.  The sky showed broken cloud coverage, so I decided to give it a try anyway since I was wide awake.  Unfortunately clouds kept moven through and the humidity with the low temperature kept attacking the corrector plate.  So I am glad my image shows some albedo features at all   The forecast is bad again.  I wonder when we get a break to get some nice results.

The last non-cloudy day for another few days, so here an image of Mars with relative bad seeing.  Transparency was average to a little over average.  Since the image was relative poor, this image has been enlarged 1.5x instead of the 2x original image.  The ice in the South Pole impressions is pretty good visible in this image and Niliacus Lacus is shows very wide in the center if the image with extentions into Achilis Fons and Lunae Lacus.

Did some imaging before my wife and I set off to do some early Christmas shopping.  Walmart had some fantstic deals!  We are making progress!  Today was the first time I did not have to use my 12V hairdryer to keep the corrector plate from dewing up.  The transparency was great, but the seeing was pretty bad.  Here Mars showing CM26.  It looks like some polar haze is extending from Mare Acidalium.

Mars on Thanksgiving day 2009!  The seeing was not good and I ended up with some soft images.  Could not bring out more contrast without the images ringing.  It looks like there might be some dust in Xanthe?  For the rest the image is too soft to make out specific items other than the general albedo regions.

A clear night again after 3 days of rain and clouds.  There is nothing special to see at this “blank” side of Mars, except the destinct NPC.

Mars on November 16th.  Clouds can be seen over Mons Olympus, Tharsis and Phoenicis Lacus. Probably the last image for a couple of days.  The clouds are coming again! 

Saturday morning was nice and crisp and wide thin and high cloud bands, but very humid which kept me busy between runs to keep my corrector plate from dewing up.  I managed one OK image during the 1 1/2 session.  Some indications of clouds can be seen over Olympus Mons and Tharsis or Arsia Silva.

The weather keeps being kind to us.  Although the seeing and transparency are not 100%, the conditions are 100% better in the last few says than they have been in a long time.  Anyone can tell me if the yellowish area over Isidis Region and Aetheria are dust or clouds, or maybe nothing?  Here 4 of the 5 images I ran this morning.