Late Saturday night I rolled out my Ultima 9.25 in Palo Alto to work on my ongoing project to photograph the lunar limb just as dusk falls (there, not here). After finishing the film roll I decided to check out the area visually. Petavius was a standout feature and the Rimae Petavius in particular looked like something you would see in Nevada -- a long sraight road from the crater wall, leading off to a mysterious mining operation in the central mountains perhaps.
Having seen an obvious sign of civilization on another body a felt I was ready for the next step -- Mars.
The previous Saturday I had looked for Mars around 2:00 a.m. without much success. There was a hazy sky in which, with binoculars, a couple of reddish stars could be seen. Scorpius wasn't visible per se, but I suppose I saw Mars and Antares through my binos, without it being obvious which was which. Nothing I saw justified dragging the scope out.
This week was different. Mars was obvious, as was Antares, at 2:10 a.m. They weren't much higher -- Mars is a laggard planet and does not reliably rise almost a half hour earlier each week like a deep sky object. But it was clear and the planet was unmistakable even in the San Jose skyglow.
After waiting another 20 minutes I rolled my scope down the sidewalk to where the horizon is unobstructed. Mars was bigger than I expected at this early date, a disk much larger than say Uranus. Seeing was predictably poor, and there was some atmospheric refraction, but I swear I saw what looked like a dark feature near the center. High magnification (280x) worked OK despite the conditions. I was loving it. No canals, however.
Welcome back, O Red One! Its been about a year since I saw you last.