Lick and Mars last night (Tue, 8/26)

by Rich Neuschaefer


Last night Lick had an invitation only Mars star party. A number of people were there from UC Santa Cruz.

The seeing was quite good. After transit the seeing was coming and going but lots of detail frequently. The image through the 36" refractor improved a lot using a red filter. The dark features became much easier to see and much less bloated. They became much better defined.

Several amateurs had scopes set up out behind the old observatory. I had my AP 180EDT. With the binoviewer plus its barlow, the 16mm Zeiss Abbe Orthos gave a very nice image. The dark features were easy to see. Relatively early in the evening it looked like there was a cloud on the northern limb of Mars. Later, near transit, the northern cloud was gone.