Mars gets close - Phobos & Deimos revealed!
2003 Sept 16/17: Occulting bar discarded with Phobos and Deimos contained within the dynamic range of the CCD camera with Mars superimposed later. Over the two hour session Phobos moved from near the Martian north pole to eastern elongation clear of the planet's glare.
2003 Sept 14/15: Deimos at mag 11.6 captured [double tick] using an occulting bar to block brilliant mag -2.58 Mars with Mars superimposed later. A faint mag 12 star [single tick] passes south of Deimos and may [by projecting track backwards] have grazed or occulted Mars' north limb at 2003 Sept 14 @ 21.00UT. Although Phobos was at opposite [western] elongation, at a third the distance of Deimos, Phobos was lost in the glare of Mars.
2003 Sept 4/5 at WPO: My first Mars images for some years via 30cm Meade LX200 f/10 SCT @ f/26 via x2 barlow + extension tubes and MX5 CCD in single 0.01s exposures reveal more than seen visually at the time. The complete 14 image sequence formed an animation.
Headley Heath - Surrey - 2003 Aug 27 - some Ewell AS members and two visitors via the Society's webpage attended our regular monthly Observing Evening at Headley Heath at 500ft on the Surrey North Downs and coincided with Mars' closest approach. Hazy but excellent views of Mars with the polar cap and Syrtis Major [SM] clearly seen in good steady seeing - SM slowly moving towards the limb as the planet rotated throughout the evening using Mike Fantham's 20cm Celestron.
The
last time I sketched Mars was at the perihelic opposition of 1971 via a
Dixon 60mm refractor! A small aperture can be productive as it is
less troubled by poor seeing conditions. Syrtis Major is the dark
feature near left limb with light area of Hellas Basin above. Some two
dozen sketches over several weeks were used to animate an 8mm movie showing
the shrinking polar cap and the planet's rotation - before today's Internet
animations!
images copyright Maurice Gavin - 2003/9/14_308_17_508