Weather conditions: HIGH transparency (5/5), AVERAGE seeing (3/5)
Because this would be my first session in 2022 looking at Mars, I wanted to establish what was visible through a small scope, so I took out the Vixen Space Eye 70 (70/700mm) mounted on a Celestron NexStar GT mount:
Jupiter – by 11 PM, the planet was very low down the horizon so I didn’t get an optimal view. At 117x, the usual Northern and Southern Equatorial belts were visible as well as the Southern Polar region, but that was it.
Uranus – even at 117x, the planet was visible as a tiny white disc and not a star.
Mars – by 11:15 PM the planet was almost overhead. At 117x, two dark regions (one in the center and the other near the top), along with what appeared to be a polar ice cap, were visible. Need a larger telescope to confirm what the surface features were, but otherwise the planet looked sharp, despite the color fringing caused by the achromat.
11-22-22 (Tuesday night)
Weather conditions: HIGH Transparency (5/5), GOOD seeing (4/5)
Sticking with my smaller scopes, I next took out my Celestron C90 Spotting Scope (90/1250mm or
Jupiter – by 9:15 PM, the planet was still at a decent angle above the horizon. At 139x, besides the North and South Equatorial Belts and the South Polar region, the North Temperate Belt and the North North (NN) Temperate Belt (averted vision) were visible. The moon Io made a shadow on the North Equatorial Belt. Tried 208x as well, not much degradation at that magnification.
Mars – at 139x, the same two dark regions seen on 11-19 were visible, along with a clear/sharp polar ice cap. The dark region in the middle was large. Looking at the S&T Mars Profiler, it looks like I was looking at Syrtis Major, Mare Tyrrhenum and IAPYGIA merged into one area, with the dark region just below the ice cap possibly being UTOPIA. Need to confirm this, hopefully with larger equipment.
Looking forward to what my larger telescopes (4" 'frac, 5" and 6" Newts) will show.
