Telescope Reviews: Mars is killing me!

I tried Mars again Saturday night/Sunday morning, Nov. 7-8. I took out my 8" Newt this time. I hadn't used the 8" for quite a while. It was a happy reunion. The 8" is a lot lighter and the Dob mount is a lot less temperamental than my 10" Newt Dob. I had carefully determined through trial and error the amount of weight (lead sinkers) to put in the sports pack that I strap around the lower end of the OTA as a counterweight. I set it up to balance my heaviest eyepiece when the scope is positioned vertically and horizontally. Now when I insert my lightest eyepiece, I only need to place one 1/2 lb magnetic weight on the OTA directly below the focuser and the scope will balance perfectly. But on to the Mars observation...

I was out between 12:30 and 3:30. According to CLear Sky Chart, the seeing and transparency were both average. First I looked at the Moon with my binoviewer. When I was done, I concentrated on Mars. I experimented with different filters. I tried a #85 Salmon-colored filter which a fellow CNer graciously sent to me. It is a 2" filter, so I screwed it onto the end of my Owl 15mm 2" eyepiece and inserted the eyepiece into my Owl 2x Barlow, which gave me 160x. Mars is so small now, that I couldn't tell at this magnification if the filter was doing a good job or not. I tried screwing the 2" filter onto an extension and inserting my higher power 1.25" eyepieces into the extension, but I didn't have enough in-focus this way. So I think I'll leave further experimentation with the 2" Salmon filter for when Mars comes closer this Winter.

For the 1.25" filters, I used my Smart Astronomy SPL 6mm, TMB 4mm, Coulter Ortho 6mm, and my Baader Genuine Ortho 9mm. I tried a Baader Fringer Killer but it had no appreciable effect on the image. I had already used red, blue, and orange filters the previous night, so I left them alone. I had several DSO filters already loaded in my filter wheel, so I tried them out for fun. There are five slots in the wheel: 1) open (no filter), 2) DGM Optics NPB, 3) Lumicon Deep Sky, 4) Lumicon H-Beta, 5) Lumicon OIII. Of these filters, the Deep Sky is the only one that improved the image of Mars. And it did improve it quite a bit. The polar caps, the dark rings around the caps, and other dark markings did stand out better with more contrast. I had heard that the Orion Sky Glow is a good Mars filter, but I have that in the 2" size only, so I didn't even try it. But it probably performs very much like the Deep Sky on Mars.

In order to have eyepieces come to focus with the filter wheel, I had to screw the OC lens from my binoviewer onto the wheel. This magnified the image about 1.9x. So my 9mm was at 253x, the 6mm was 380x, and the 4mm was 570x. The 9mm Baader G. Ortho showed Mars best, but the others weren't too bad, because Mars is so small now. I could see consistently both polar caps. Both had dark rings around them. The ring bordering the NPC was thicker. Between about 2:30 and 3:30, the SPC seemed about half the size of the NPC, maybe partly because of the tilt of Mars at that time. In moments of clearer seeing, I saw a vague darkish roughly triangular shape extending down from the SPC to the NPC, the narrower apex being at the NPC, and one side of the triangle along the SPC.

Clear Skies,
Mike

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Celestron 10" f5 Newt on 1stBase (DSO)
Zhumell 8" f6 Newt, Bosma 6" f12 MCT (NSO)
6" f5 Newt, 130ST, 4.5" f4.4 Ball w/GLP, ST80 w/Crayford (RFTs)
C4-R (NSO/DS)
90mm f13 MCT (Luna/DS)
SkyMaster 25x100, 15x70
Zhumell 20x80
Barska XWA 10x50, 8x40
OptiView LPR 10x50
Const View 2.3x40
BV-125C
CG5, 2 drv / CG4, 2 drv, wood legs, ScopeStuff saddle / CG3, 1 drv
SV AZ / 501HDV on Bogen 055XB / P+ on Oberwerk
QuikFinder, Telrad
Orion Dynamo Pro 12, Dew-Not
Have GLP and not afraid to use it!