About 3pm pst I headed for Fremont Peak state park about 70 miles south of San Jose, California with my Astro-Physics 180EDT (180mm f/9) APO refractor.
I set up in front of the Fremont Peak Observatory. There were 4 or 5 of us there and a few other observers set up in other parts of the park. Mark Wagner had his 20" f/5 Obsession, Rod Norden had his AP 180EDT about forty feet away from my scope. It was fun calling out Martian features to each other. I was using an AP/Zeiss binoviewer with its barlow and an AP Maxbright star diagonal. In this configuration with 10 mm Zeiss Abbe Orthos I believe the magnification was about 400x. Rod was using the same configuration most of the time with his Zeiss binoviewer and Zeiss eyepeices.
The seeing started out around 6 and later would "fuz up" and then settle to 6 or 7 for a few seconds. When I started observing Mars Friday evening Syrtis Major was crossing the meridian. Hellas was large and very bright white. The north pole was small and white. The leading limb was grayish white. There were small dark marks between the north end of Syrtis Major and the Northern Polar cap. At this point Utopia was not very dark. Syrtis Major was showing some nice irregularities ("bays") around its border.
Later as Syrtis Major was heading toward the limb and Sinuss Sabaeus coming into view Utopia was easier to see. Later yet Mare Acidalium and Niliacus Lacus were a little more than half into view and the clouds (on Earth) got quite thick.
Still at Fremont Peak, about 8 am I got up after sleeping only 3 hours in the back of my truck. The Fremont Peak Observatory Association was having day time activities. The sky started out cloudy but by mid afternoon the sky was 3/4 clear and getting better. It looked like I would be the only person set up by the observatory so I packed my scope and drove over to the south- west parking lot at "the Peak". A TAC star party was forming there and I thought with friends to talk to I would be more likely to stay awake.
The transparency was better than on most of Friday night. The seeing was between 5 and 6 and sometimes 7. While waiting for Mars to get high enough for good viewing I looked at the brighter deep sky objects. The Eskimo planetary nebula looked very nice. a bright glow around a pin point central star. This was with the 180EDT and I the AP Maxbright star diagonal and a single eyepiece. I think I was using the 7.5 mm LE Takahashi.
When I started observing Mars, Syrtis Major had not quite gotten to the meridian. The seeing started out a relatively soft 5. Later as Mars climbed quite a bit higher the seeing was more 6 and sometimes 7 or better briefly. I went back to using the Zeiss binoviewer with its barlow and Maxbright diagonal. Early in the observing I used a pair of 16 mm Zeiss Abbe Orthos and then switched to 10 mm Zeiss Abbe Orthos giving about 400x.
It was interesting to see a brightening (whitish area) near leading and trailing edges of Mars. They would sometimes be more easily seen. I don't know if this was due to the transparency in our air or large changes in the Martian atmosphere. I didn't see any clouds on Mars that would move with the planet. I briefly tried a colored filter in one eyepiece but I didn't find it useful. I should get pairs of 1 1/4" finters or single 48 mm colored filters for the front of the binoviewer. I don't know that colored filters would have helped much. The image through the refractor was showing very nice contrast and detail. Much the same detail was seen as the night before. But after Mars transited the seeing was quite good, better than Friday. Utopia was easy to see although still lower in contrast than Syrtis Major and Sinus Sabaeus. The "bays" and projections around Syrtis Major were better defined. Sinus Sabaeus looked like a long branch or root sticking to the side from the southern part of Syrtis Major. Again, before I went to sleep in the back of my truck Mare Acidalium was well into view. I was hoping to stay up long enough to see if I could see detail in the Aurorae Sinus area but clouds started coming over and I went to "bed" for another 3 hours of sleep.
The charts and images of Mars in the April issue of Sky & Telescope helped with identifying features. It was interesting to me that the Utopia area was not as dark relative to Sinus Sabaeus as it is in the S&T charts. It would be interesting to know if the brigtening on the leading and trailing limbs of Mars was fog in the Martian atmosphere of just light reflecting off Martian atmosphere. At times it would extend from the limbs inward about as much as the average width Syrtis Major.
It was good looking through the other telescopes. Most people at the star party were doing deep sky observing with large Dobs at least two 18 inch and Mark's 20 incher. There was a TV-101 APO refractor. It gave a very nice, high contrast view of Mars using I think a 5mm Pentax eyepiece and a barlow for 200+ magnification. I enjoyed sharing views of Mars throught my 180EDT and the binoviewer.
San Jose, California, USA