Mars!

Tuesday 1st December: Very cold tonight and very clear...too clear as the Moon, just 1 day away from being Full is dominating the sky. I drove to Austerfield expecting a throng there at the Observatory, silly me, should've rung before leaving home! This didn't really matter as I needed to get away from the bright lights of my neighbourhood to make an observation of Chi Cygni.

Using my 10x50 binoculars and comparing the variable to three nearby comparison stars, a 6.4, 6.1 and magnitude 5.1 star, Chi certainly seemed brighter than when last viewed. In fact the variable is a 'tad' brighter than the +6.1 star, but not by much. So my estimate would be +6.0.

After that, I did give Brian a call on my mobile. It was 9pm and Brian would be down for 10pm. So I nipped home for a hot cuppa of tea. Getting back at 10:30pm, Brian was waiting in the office and reluctant to go out in the cold especially with such a bright Moon in the sky. So I had the Dome to myself for a while.

Due to the Moon being at a very high altitude only the brightest of stars were visible to the naked-eye. So there's me trying to observe U Orionis with a 14" SCT in full moonlight - not a chance! So I toured a couple of objects in Orion; Iota Orionis, otherwise known by the arabic name of Nair al Shaif. This is a lovely triple star surrounded by numerous other white stars. Rigel, Betelgeuse, Zeta Orionis, Alnitak and the off to Mars!

Now just because the clarity of the sky was good and the air was very cold (except for the brilliance of the Moon), it doesn't always hold that the Seeing is Good. In fact the Seeing was atrocious, the image of Mars was shimmering and jumping about as if being wafted by a spacial breeze! In fact the planet was still fairly close to the eastern horizon, being only 25 degrees in altitude. I took some webcam footage but the image was very unsteady. Mars is still rather small in apparent size, 9 arc seconds in diameter but still a target to webcam. Hopefully in the weeks to come I will be able to get a better image of the planet.

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