Looks promising tonight...

"Mike Dworetsky" wrote:

Looks like a decent night is on its way
SNIP
Good luck everybody!

Thanks - and promise delivered - awesome.

I've come in to put a jersey on - almost forgotten how to do it.

Cheers

Martin

--------------
Martin Frey
N 51 02 E 0 47
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"Geoff Smith" wrote in message
...
Mike
How does the Mars look visually in the Fry Telescope? How do the views
through this 140 year old instrument compare with those we get in amateur
scopes?
Geoff



Excellent, the main problems in London are seeing-related. The optics are
in an excellent state of health, and the mount and drive are very steady.
Residual chromatic aberration is a slight problem in all two-element
objectives and this is no exception, but the figure is remarkably good and
it isn't a serious problem. Whoever polished the lenses 140 years ago
really knew his stuff.

Last night's CCD observations with the "Planetcam" looked good, during
moments of steady seeing. After about 1.30am BST the seeing began to blow
up and there were no longer any moments worth recording, so we gave up. The
large variations in environment temperature may be partly to blame; a rapid
drop in outside temperature can cause rising air from the building.

We will try to extract a coadd or two from the video tape and post them.

Solis Lacus was almost exactly in the centre of the visible hemisphere by
that time. A bit S of centre.

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)

"Geoff Smith" wrote in message
...
Mike
How does the Mars look visually in the Fry Telescope? How do the views
through this 140 year old instrument compare with those we get in amateur
scopes?
Geoff



Excellent, the main problems in London are seeing-related. The optics are
in an excellent state of health, and the mount and drive are very steady.
Residual chromatic aberration is a slight problem in all two-element
objectives and this is no exception, but the figure is remarkably good and
it isn't a serious problem. Whoever polished the lenses 140 years ago
really knew his stuff.

Last night's CCD observations with the "Planetcam" looked good, during
moments of steady seeing. After about 1.30am BST the seeing began to blow
up and there were no longer any moments worth recording, so we gave up. The
large variations in environment temperature may be partly to blame; a rapid
drop in outside temperature can cause rising air from the building.

We will try to extract a coadd or two from the video tape and post them.

Solis Lacus was almost exactly in the centre of the visible hemisphere by
that time. A bit S of centre.

--
Mike Dworetsky

(Remove "pants" spamblock to send e-mail)