Mars, Two Weeks Post Opposition

Another lousy weekend for astronomy.

Clouds in the sky at night.  Each and every night.

I missed the peak of the Perseids meteor shower because of overcast skies.

Fortunately, I saw the forecast in advance and took yet another vacation day from work to stay out all night on Thursday to try to get some quality observing done.

It was a dark and moonless sky on Thursday.  It also started out as horribly cloudy.  Mars was beckoning near the horizon.  Clearly, teasing me to try some lucky imaging.  The rest of the sky was full of clouds, but Mars was visible.

Mars rise is before 8pm (EST) these days.  If you haven't seen it yet, you really ought to make an effort.  It'll be the bright orange/red object in the southeastern sky.  It's gorgeous! 

Clouds obscured the North Star.  This made aligning the telescope somewhat troublesome.  Tracking will suffer if the telescope is not aligned.

I made a guess as to where true north was with respect to the telescope.  I must have made a good guess.  Tracking was good enough that Mars stayed in the field of view for the many minutes that I like for a video capture run.

Mars Oppositions, A Comparison!

When I took another look at the video that I captured and processed to create last week's image of Mars, I realized that I still had videos that I captured from the 2016 opposition.

The difference between this opposition, with its planet encircling dust storm, and the 2016 opposition is striking. 

Here is a still frame from this opposition.

Dusty Mars, at opposition 2018

Happy Mars Opposition Day!

This morning, I was determined to beat the next onslaught of clouds and rain.

I had all of the equipment outside and acclimated well before Mars was to cross its highest point in the sky.

The astronomy weather predictions were not good.

But, I was determined to catch an image of Mars today.  It is Opposition Day, after all.

This astronomy session turned into an exercise in perseverance.

This gorgeous image was taken with my cell phone camera.  It shows the conditions under which this week's Mars image, the Mars Opposition Image, was captured.

Pretty, but not optimum conditions for imaging,

Mars is indeed centered in the field of view.  It is in the clear patch of sky not illuminated by the almost full moon.

Not Mars, How About Mice from Deep Space Instead?

All astronomy sessions were clouded or rained out this weekend.

It's the new telescope curse!

No, I didn't get a new telescope, but a friend of mine did.  It's a large Dob and he has been wanting to upgrade for quite a while.  So, of course, he has the new telescope and the entire east coast has clouds and rain!

😃

The weather forecast even throws next weekend's astronomy opportunities into doubt.

So, instead of a fresh new image of Mars from this weekend, here is an image taken from my backyard of another one of my favorite dim magnitude deep space objects.  This was from a observing session in April.

Not Mars, It's a Deep Space Object

Following the old adage, "waste not, want not . . ."

I took advantage of the dark moonless sky and tried to see and capture some deep space objects this weekend.

I'm particularly happy capturing this one because it is so dim and difficult to see.  Its a close grouping of galaxies known as "Stephan's Quintet."

Their magnitudes range from 13.9 to 16.7.  This image was captured with my 10 inch Dob and ZWO imager.

Mars, There is Hope

Clouds continued to roll through the sky during last night's observing session.

Mars did manage to peek through long enough for me to capture some images, though.

Giant planet encircling dust storm on Mars?  Yes.  It is still there, but there is hope.  Reports are that it may be abating.  My captures from last night seem to offer that hope.

Mars, Lost in the Clouds

Observing last night and this morning was challenging.

Banks of clouds continued to roll over the sky in the directions that I had the telescope pointed.  It seemed that Mars was especially afflicted with being obscured by clouds.

It was a dark and moonless sky so I didn't want to waste it.  I stayed out with the telescope and took advantage of the clear patches as much as I could.