Upon arriving at Fremont Peak last night it became apparent very fast that tthe night was going to be busy. I had left Monterey by 6:30pm but 15 mins. out I had noticed that I forgot to take my wallet and I had only a half tank of gas left over in the vehicle returning from my observing trip at Plettstone that morning. So, I u-turned back to the house to get my wallet causing me to be half-an hour late to the Peak. The sun was already setting as I drove the Peak's road to the park. I decided to set up at the Coulter area in Fremont Peak State Park because my primary goal on Saturday night was to observe as much as Mars as possible. I haven't had that chance yet this apparition.
My setup spot at Coulter was just below a few camping parties above me on the knoll along with their camp fires smoldering away and kids running around having fun with pointing their flashlights at anybody and everything else. To my left were a party of four guys in a camper and trailer setting up a self-built 22 in. f/5.8 solid sono-tube Dob with a 12 ft. ladder to get to the eyepiece. What a monster. It took all of them to set it up. To my right was a newbie (Wayne) with his 6 in. f/8 Newtonian on a Russian Tal equatorial mount. Over at the park gate area 100 ft. away were another assemblage of ten scopes. I was surrounded by many people. After setting my A-P 10" Mak-Cass on a Tak NJP mount, I hiked over to the SW parking lot. The sun was already down but it left a nice warm glow in the sky to the west allowing Jupiter and Mercury to domiinate the sky. Reaching the SW parking lot, I was astonished to see the entire parking area filled with two rows of vehicles and scopes. It was dejavue all over again. Summer was here. the air was in the 70's and the fog was below us blocking off all the cities to the west, north and soon to the east. What a good feeling to be there! I walked on through the crowd knowing few peole but enjoying a good word with many. David was there with his son and had his fine A-P 155 EDFS. This picture reminded me of all the times I had been in the SW parking lot with many of you. The energy is great during the summer and there's such a large group observing together.
I got back to my spot at Coulter and immediately spent some time with Wayne to answer his many questions about telescopes and what to see in the night sky. Mars had just risen but wasn't showing anything but a boiling blur due to its low altitude in the SE. I knew that in a few hours I would have plenty of Mars time. Sitting back in my chair and seeing the summer sky up in front of me was so relaxing and enjoyable. By midnight, Mars was getting high enough in the sky to begin showing a nice southern polar cap with its fog encroaching into the dark gray Utopia region bordering to the north. I could also see bluish-white cloudiness on Mars' eastern and western limbs hiding any darker markings that were supposed to be visible. Mar's disk coloring was a nice ochre yellow against the white polar cap an the gray Utopia region. Occassionally, I could see a few small (1-2 arc-secs) gray patches in the northern hemisphere, probably Propoutis ans Stymphalius Lacus. By 2am until 3am, I was Mars had rotated to expose the Mare Cimmerium region and Hesperia. By 2am with Mars at its meridian, I was noticing much delicately gray-colored features appearing and disappearing in the northern hemisphere.
I was using both a 16mm Zeiss Abbe Ortho with a Celestron Barlow attached and a 10mm Zeiss Ortho as eyepieces in my Mars' observation. These provided 462x and 370x respectively. The seeing provided me fair glimpses of Mars about a quarter of the time after 1am. I had two good hours of observations. I look foreward to more Mars' observations in the coming weeks leading to Mars' opposition.