Fear from the Black Forest Star Party, 2003/8/31 UT

I had attempted to bag the minuscule Martian satellites named Fear and
Panic, better known as Phobos and Deimos, several times before and
during the BFSP last week without success. These attempts included
using instruments as large as Russ Lederman's Denkmeier Two binoviewer
equipped 20" ATM Dob, the 20" Starmaster Sky Tracker Dob belonging to
Gary Honis, and Tom Whiting's new 30" ATM Dob. Much to my chagrin I
learned that my observing partner Tony Donnangelo had seen both on
Thursday night through Nick Zallar's 16" ATM Dob. Unfortunately, I was
elsewhere at the time.

Friday night was a rainy one in Potter County and the forecast for
Saturday night seemed to be in a state of flux. However, the gods of
the weather decided to smile upon the assembled masses on Saturday
night. The skies cleared by nightfall and were steady and transparent
for the course of the night.

After some productive satellite and deep-sky observing I ventured over
to Gary's 20" just prior to the time of the maximum eastern elongation
of the 10.5 magnitude Fear. Gary was imaging Mars with a web cam. He
turned up the gain to search for Phobos, a technique he had used
previously, but we weren't to detect any suspicious pixels.

Soon afterward Nick walked over and related that he was seeing Phobos
with his 16". I immediately returned with him and put my eye to the
ocular. At first I wasn't able to see a thing! However, after a few
minutes Phobos popped into sight and I was able to hold it steadily
rather easily without the use of an occulting bar.

Eventually I returned to Gary's scope. By this time he'd placed an
ocular equipped with an occulting bar into the focuser. After working
the control paddle for a bit I finally brought Phobos into view. It
was easier to see with the larger aperure and the occulting bar. We
then tried to locate Deimos. Gary mentioned that he thought he saw it
in one of the diffraction spikes to the west of the planet but I was
unable to catch a glimpse of the 12.6 kilometer-sized rock.

We had some excellent views of Mars that night. From time to time
incredible detail was revealed. Novus Mons was quite distinct from the
SPC and the Pipe (Sinus Sabeus and Sinus Meridiani) was very well
placed. The North Polar Hood was unmistakable through Dave Barrett's
24" Tectron Dob.

Dave Mitsky