The Dutch Observatory

I did setup after we came home from visiting a friend and decided to make a series of images of Mars. The weather was nice, and seeing was not too bad, although it went bad at the end.  I ended up making 13 images seperated 10 minutes from each other, so it spans 2hours.  Click on the thumbnail below for the best image of the series and click here for a two hour Mars rotation animation.  You can see the conditions getting bad at the end.  Clouds over Aethiopsis and clouds or mist extending beyond Aeria at the preceding limb.

My goal for imaging tonight was the International Space Station. However Frank and I missed it somehow.  So because the conditions were very good, I changed my plans and changed to Mars and Saturn.  These are my first images after Mars drops below 10 degrees.

The first night in a long time that we had some good conditions again.  Here Mars as it is just a little bigger than 1o arc seconds. 

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.