Mars – CM 313°
Sketch and Details by Kris Smet
Finally some good seeing tonight, i had a beautiful view of syrtis major, hellas, sinus sabaeus and the north polar region. finally some subtle darkness differences in syrtis major could be made out; where mare tyrrhenum runs into syrtis major and the northern tip was dark and kinda triangular. the little ‘bended hook’ was also visible. sinus sabaeus was also a bit darker. after a while i thought to see some irregularity in the npc/nph border, like a bit of it sticking out, slightly isolated.
Lybia & Aeria showed as bright patches, i guess Lybia could be clouded because it showed up brighter in blue light than Aeria.
the deucalionis region (in between sinus sabaeus and noachis) also looked brighter, but i think that might just be due to the it’s position between two darker areas.
Hopefully we can get a few more nights like this in january! it’s good sessions like these which make you forget previous frustrating views
I used my 8″ dob for this one @ 357x without filters.
the sketch is simply scanned and a bit unsharpened, no further color, brightness or contrast enhancements.
location: bornem, belgium
Kris,
You are lucky guy, You were able to use such HUGE power in European condition! 😀
The sketch is very good. I see, You painted lots of surface details and the planet “bright border”.
Has anyone idea what is the nature of “bright border”? Is it illusion or something else?
Marek
Excellent work Kris you certainly got a window of excellent seeing, I have yet to get mine.
Dale
Kris,
It is always a pleasure to see your fine Mars sketches. Great color capture.
Frank 🙂