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From: roper-studioNOSPAMMREMOVE@juno.com
Subject: Mars at Opposition, 2003
Newsgroups: sci.astro.amateur
By Regina Roper-Waldee, Stephen Waldee:
Roper Piano Studio, San Jose, CA.
To put it into perspective: Perhaps the Neanderthals still lived when last the planet Mars was THIS close to terra firma. So, despite the fact that my husband Stephen had been forced by various small health shortcomings of vision, back trouble, and arthritis to give up active astronomical observing in the late 1990's, we decided that THIS event -- the close opposition of Mars in 2003 -- simply HAD to be experienced. And I no longer had regular summer access to the telescopes at Lick Observatory, since I haven't given any of the "Music of the Spheres" concerts for a few years. During the Mars oppositions in July of 1986 and September of 1988, we had the chance to see the Red Planet in all its glory in the 22" Tauchmann classical cassegrain telescope in a small dome at Lick on Mount Hamilton, a telescope built originally by an advanced amateur astronomer around 1935-6 and eventually willed to the Observatory. Not really suited to any serious observing program, the Tauchmann used to be regularly employed by my friend Shiloh Unruh, on the Observatory's support staff and co-founder of the "Music of the Spheres" concert series, as well as by staff techs for private sessions with friends and family. But the Tauchmann is apparently no longer available now that there is a more "professional" and strict regime at Lick, and after some experiences with abuse of privilege on the Mountain by certain part time employees in recent years.
Early "Music of the Spheres" program at Lick Observatory, 1980's snapshot
This snapshot, probably taken by site manager Ron Laub at Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton, was from one of the first
"Music of the Spheres" concerts, with (l-r) Shiloh Unruh, Regina and Becky Roper, and Wally Downs, flutist
(brother of Hugh Downs) "decompressing" after the concert and letting their hair down.
We were invited to come to the Mountain by Dr. Rem Stone to join one of the staff sessions for showing Mars to the mountaintop residents, but decided that the event was going to be so strictly structured that we would probably only be in the way and add to the logistical problems. In past years, Lick and other professional observatory sites have been perhaps more lenient and casual in allowing occasional viewing by members of the public and advanced amateur astronomers; but after 9/11 things have changed -- for the worse. Security is tighter, and with more and more people packing our roads in search of summer adventure, the free-and-easy days of casual observing are often a thing of the past, to be much-remembered and nostalgically cherished as unrepeatable opportunities. But what to do now to see Mars? We no longer have the telescope menagerie that formerly covered every nook and cranny of the garage. Stephen had even kept for many years his own very FIRST scope, used to view Sputnik's orbit around the earth in 1957. It, along with our 8" astrophotographic scope on a large German equatorial mount (with which we made many detailed observations and drawings of Mars for our old Waldee-Wood Astronomical Software website back in 1995 and '97), our refractors, and our huge old fuzzy-imaged Coulter 17.5" Dob, had passed into other hands.
Stephen's color drawing of Mars, observed in 1986: 10" reflector
At the 1986 opposition, Stephen viewed Mars at Loma Prieta, south of San Jose, with his 10" f/5.6 reflector: this color rendering was used in the Waldee-Wood Eyepiece telescope program to simulate an ideal eyepiece view. The software program is available free of charge on this website.
Stephen has long been a "reflector skeptic" anyway. He was hugely disappointed with views of Mars using the 22" Tauchmann: the incredibly long focal length gave many hundreds of diameters magnification even with a 40 mmm eyepiece; and Mars during the 1988 opposition was simply a blinding yellow-orange blob with that overkill instrument. With his own 10" F/5.6 Newtonian, Stephen had been able to get good views of Mars only by using an apodizing screen (a gadget much promoted by former ASTRONOMY Magazine editor Richard Berry, but derided by many 'doubting Thomas' amateurs who had never actually USED one!) Those observing sessions during the opposition of 1986-88 had offered Stephen his own historically best experiences of Mars in a telescope eyepiece, with a flawlessly sharp and crisp image of surface detail and the polar cap. The diminution of luminance provided by the apodizer made the shattering brilliance of Mars just endurable; and the enhanced crispening of detail from the apodizer's action in breaking up atmospheric diffusion patterns helped make the planetary experience a truly memorable one -- except for the agony of keeping a huge 10" tube assembly, on a home made pipe mount without clock drive -- centered on the planet at about 400 diameters magnification. Fugitive, shaky glimpses, then, were all he remembered: quick "revolation peeps" as the great benefactor and founder of Lowell Observatory -- Percival Lowell -- called them.
The Visitors' Center, Lowell Observatory, Mars Hill, Flagstaff, Arizona
On an overcast winter day in late 1991, Regina Roper photographed the Visitors' Center at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, the site of years of study with visual and photographic telescopes of the markings of Mars. Though the "Martian canal" hypothesis was first originated in Europe, it was the tireless promotion by Lowell, and the respected Harvard astronomer William Pickering, that "sold" the idea to the American public, and -- reluctantly -- to other astronomers.
We hoped this time for a more lasting memory, and longer looks than the regimented "fifteen seconds at the eyepiece" we knew that the Lick folks would be given as they marched in a long line up to the working end of the Great 36" Refractor. One by one we contemplated and then discarded opportunities for viewing that we found on a Yahoo page of Northern California observing sessions. To be blunt about it: we've seen so many disappointing planetary observations with the standard run-of-the-mill storebought reflector and Cassegrain scopes that we craved something -- well -- a bit different: in fact, something much better. We ALMOST considered the considerable physical torture of a long drive to rural Auburn to join our old friend Don Machholz at his dusty Dutch Flat Diggins site in the Sierra foothills: we knew that deep-sky viewing there would be astounding, but Mars did not require the sacrifice. From his forty years residence, since high school, in the South Bay region of northern California, Stephen was convinced that all we needed was an excellent night of steady early fall air with "laminar" flow and calm seeing. In fact, the mountain regions don't always provide the heavy and dense cushion needed to stabilize a bright planetary image, though they DO certainly clarify a distant galaxy or nebula, or make the dark lanes of the Milky Way so palpable that one feels as if one can reach out and TOUCH them! No, the planets may often be enjoyed to the hilt right in one's own Santa Clara valley front or back yard, with persistence. And enjoyed even more at a slightly higher elevation, a bit distant from human habitation's stray photons.
"Music of the Spheres" at Lick, 1988: audience climbs to dome's seats
S. Waldee took this snapshot as the audience is let in to the chilly dome of the Great 36" Refractor, prior to the start of the "Music of the Spheres" concert, while Regina Roper prepares for the performance.
So we compromised on a trial of the elementary school grounds at La Honda. A local resident who is a cabinet maker by trade, Mr. James Adams, had been public spirited enough to organize a casual viewing session at the school grounds; he lives about a mile away -- lucky dawg! -- in this interior valley, shielded by the skyline ridge from the direct rays of (seemingly) billions and billions of silicon valley streetlights. A general glow seeps in from the east, but the southwest region of the sky is pristine: and we discovered on this, our first trip to the site on Saturday night August 23rd, that the dark lanes of the Milky Way, and the prominent off-jutting bridge near the center of our home galaxy, were quite well delineated. With naked eyes, or by means of 7x50 binoculars, the dark lanes were just apparent against a soft plangent glow of the galaxy's center (if we deposited ourselves PRECISELY in the shadow provided by a useful SUV, parked at the edge of the observing space to block a disgusting mercury vapor lamp.) The area behind La Honda Elementary that afforded the viewing was a flat blacktop region sloping into a gentle hill, behind the main classrooms and shadowed from most of the direct lamps illuminating the parking and walking areas. The sky there MUST be quite marvelous but one never quite gets dark-adapted. Even so, we'd guess that fifth magnitude stars were generally visible in the best direction (compared to a lousy 2.7 magnitude at our front driveway in San Jose's Almaden Valley.) We were told that it can get even darker, particularly around 2 to 4 am, past our intended visit. That's to be expected; but this was not to be an anticipated "deep sky" event, so all we really needed to do was to stay away from the mercury-blue-white and nauseatingly pink lamps and to generally look DOWN except when staring into the eyepiece of scope or binoculars. When we arrived, around 10pm, perhaps fifteen souls were milling around a small variety of scopes: we counted at least a half dozen instruments, ranging from a home made f/6 8" Dob to a gigantic long refractor on a huge commercial equatorial mount. This behemoth turned out to be a home made instrument crafted by our host, James Adams. He had acquired an eight inch aperture achromatic lens made in China, of respectable quality, and had constructed his own elegant square wooden tube assembly for this classical f/15 design. This instrument would have been more-or-less equivalent to a decent professional observatory telescope in the mid to late 19th century, and there were probably many hundreds of them in use during every historic Mars opposition more than a century ago. But, sadly, the atmosphere could not QUITE support the full aperture (and perhaps, too, the instrument had not yet achieved temperature equilibrium) so the first views were blurry with some differential limb chromatics caused by the air: blue on one side, red on the other side, that did not really cancel out in best focus. Mr. Adams did expect the seeing to improve, so instead we tried out the smaller instruments and left the large one to the enthusiastic tyro viewers, who had queued up patiently in a long line to stand in turn for their glimpse through what they EXPECTED would be the "best" instrument, i. e. the largest one. Ah, but that's NOT necessarily the way one gets the finest views of Mars, though. One needs to stay comfortable and relaxed for longish sessions of at least several minutes, hoping to come away with a few MILLISECONDS' time slices of perfect seeing. And sheer aperture size and light-gathering efficiency are NOT pre-eminently essential. And that's exactly what we then experienced with Mr. Adam's "small" telescope, another home made refractor of f/15 design, based on a commercial Vixen achromatic objective assembly (102 mm aperture) to which Adams had mated an elegant metal tube of his own construction, on a Losmandy German equatorial clock driven mount: stable, flawlessly balanced, and reliable. It was tracking well and the planet stayed nicely in the field of view of his oculars, a pair of Univerity Optics 12 mm focal length Orthoscopics in a Vixen-Orion binocular viewer adaptor. This ensemble gave -- since the bino viewer contributed a small amount of magnification -- about 165x according to our rough estimate. Now, at the earlier Mars oppositions we had experienced, even 400x produced a puny eyepiece image. But with Mars just figuratively "brushing" Earth at a mere thirty-four and a half million miles distance, the image scale at 165x was PERFECT. The bino adaptor and exit pupil employed had reduced the glare to a nice tolerable glow, though it did dim the pinkish-orangish hue of Mars to a very pale and barely discernible coloration, noticed distinctly against the pearly white of the polar cap. With this "dim" view, however, the contrast between light and dark was properly situated in the comfort range of the night-adapted eye. So dark markings were instantly apparent, undimmed by irradiation effects that had made Mars seem a featureless blinding blob in the laser-light show provided by the efficient 22" Tauchmann. We wondered, too, if the exact position of Mr. Adams' scopes -- at the edge of the shaded area behind the building, allowing the scopes to view Mars WITHOUT looking directly over the roof, which would radiate heat for some hours even after dusk -- made his telescopic views somewhat steadier than those of scopes that were positioned to 'look' right across the roof. It's important to position your telescope *away* from any sources of heat radiation, from the ground or from elevated objects, while looking at high magnifications at the planets or Moon!
Dawn snack in the lunch room at Mt. Hamilton after night of observing, 1988.
This snapshot was taken after a 1988 "Music of the Spheres" concert, and after a night of observing with the Tauchmann telescope at Mt. Hamilton, taken in the lunchroom: Steve and Regina are joined by a much fresher Wally Downs, who eschewed the observing for a good nights' sleep on the mountaintop.
Stephen approached the Adams refractor, settling in for a decent Mars observing meal, not merely a quickly gobbled hors d'oeuvre, but almost instantly jumped up in excitement from the observing chair. "Here are the CANALS! I've been TRYING all my life to see them," he nearly shouted, and then quickly quieting down to keep from disturbing other viewers, he stage-whispered, "and have NEVER been able to see a trace of 'em before." Maybe some of the other people around us just chuckled to themselves, thinking that Stephen was 'your typical astronomically ignorant member of the public'; but I knew he wasn't. Even professional astronomers, who knew better, kept seeing them, long after satellite radar imaging had shown that the canals weren't really there, as recently as just a bit earlier than a generation ago. "AT LAST: NOW I CAN SEE THEM!" Stephen enthused. (Some of you MAY have witnessed my husband "enthusing" in the past; so you will need no extensive description of the phenomenon.) For Mars was "just right" in this particular viewing situation. Using a small instrument, with a relatively dim but high contrast image, sharp optics, and 'iffy' slightly swimming early-evening seeing, with the planet still not even 20 degrees above the horizon, the "canals" were faintly visible, popping in and out in brief glimpses.
Lowell Observatory: Gate to Telescope Dome, photo by R. Roper, Dec. 1991
The gate to Lowell Observatory, founded by Percival Lowell at Flagstaff, Arizona in the late nineteenth century, and site of historic "canal" observations during Mars oppositions.
The "canals" are, of course, as Stephen and I very well knew, an artefact of both human visual perception, and instrumental distortion. They were seen -- and believed as being utterly real -- by skilled observers like Schiaparelli, Lowell, and Pickering. Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto and Lowell Observatory astronomer, insisted that he too could see them -- knowing they were an illusion -- almost every time he tried to view the planet.
Clyde Tombaugh's historic Pluto discovery photo, at Lowell Observatory
The Zeiss dual "blink comparator" and the historic discovery plate of Pluto taken by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, at the Visitors' Center at Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona; photo by Regina Roper. Tombaugh addressed the Eastbay Astronomical Association astronomy club in the nineties, before his death, and S. Waldee remembers vividly that Clyde insisted that he always saw the "canals" when observing Mars at Flagstaff, though he now knew they were only an illusion!
Stephen had long studied the surface through many scopes, including his friend Rich
Page's spectacular 14" reflector and Star-Fire 7" aperture apochromatic refractor, and --
with Rich -- could never replicate the experience. The "canals" were a failure.
So, WHY did so many astronomers BELIEVE they were there, for almost a century?
In the 1980s, Stephen had the opportunity to do some original research at the Mary
Lea Shane Archives of the Lick Observatory, both at Mt. Hamilton and at the headquarters
at UC/Santa Cruz.
While looking for information on early nebular photography at Lick, he came across some
now-fairly well known hand-drawn images by the great astronomer Edward Barnard, who
sketched Mars at the eyepiece of the then-new 36" Refractor. Barnard was struck by the
details he saw, and -- more than that -- by the details he DIDN'T see. No canals!
Instead, Barnard recorded carefully and accurately a myriad of fine surface markings
that did not coalesce into the straight linear phenomena that had been curiously
depicted by Schiaparelli a few years earlier, and immortalized by the publications
of Percival Lowell. What Barnard saw -- and drew -- were essentially what we see
today from Hubble digitizations.
E. E. Barnard was in a quandary. He did not know how to handle the "problem". Did he
DARE to contradict Schiaparelli, Lowell, and Pickering? Barnard was already on the
"outs" with Lick's rigid, authoritarian first director, and would leave Mt. Hamilton
in disgust, and with great relief, in just a few years. He confided his important
iconoclastic discovery only to his astronomical mentor, the famous professor Simon
Newcomb.
As Donald Osterbrock, co-author of Lick's history ("Eye on the Sky") recalled, the
astronomical observatories of earlier centuries were almost never located in rural,
high altitude environments. Wealthy benefactors might persuade a college or
university to build a telescope dome right smack in the middle of a smoky town,
not even on a hill! Dearborn, Washington D. C., and other cities had excellent
facilities -- at the bottom of the "swimming pool" of heavy, soot-laden, turbulent
city air. And the smallish apertures of refractors in the range of perhaps 5 to 15
inches were scarecely able to resolve, in the antique eyepiece designs of the time,
the detail that was focused on Barnard's skilled eye by the state of the art,
path-breaking gear at Mount Hamilton, 4200 feet above San Jose in the pristine
coastal California climate with "laminar" airflow particularly suited to observing
the planets with rock-steady resolution.
Dr. Donald Osterbrock at Regina's Last "Music of the Spheres" 1988
The audience in the dome of the Great Refractor at Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton awaits the start of the evening concert and viewing, preceded by a short lecture by Steve Waldee on the historic contribution of the Alvan Clark refractor to cosmological discoveries at the end of the 19th century. Regina (pianist) and Daniel Roest (guitarist) chat at front left; in center, J. Wallace Downs (arm raised) speaks with Dr. Donald Osterbrock (looking forward), former Director of Lick Observatory and Professor of Astrophysics at University of California/Santa Cruz, and co-author of "Eye on the Sky" (the story of Lick Observatory) and many other astronomical papers and books.
Osterbrock's phrase that expressed the skepticism of many other astronomers with respect to Lick's observations was: "not in MY telescope". For the astronomers at -- say -- Potsdam, or Washington, or even Cambridge at Harvard University, could not duplicate the fleeting, unrecordable eyepiece observations made on the mountain east of San Jose. Even early astrophotography was little help in planetary observations: despite the best efforts of Barnard, or of the Slipher brothers at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, early photographic plates of the planets were fuzzier and less distinct than what could be seen in the eyepieece of even a 60 millimeter aperture scope. The long answer to "why the canals were accepted" is found in the fascinating book "The Planet Mars" by Dr. William Sheehan -- see the web page article athttp://www.uapress.arizona.edu/onlinebks/mars/contents.htm
-- while the short answer is, probably, that once the "experts" published their flawed observations and cranky interpretations of the elusive Mars markings, few were willing to challenge them. Indeed, Lowell and Pickering -- the leading American champions of the canals -- were feisty souls who violently defended their positions with the same ferocity that, say, Richard C. Hoagland champions his "Face On Mars" hypothesis, against all comers.
Radiometer used at Lowell Observatory for Measurements of Mars
Regina's photo, taken at Lowell Observatory Visitors' Center at Flagstaff in winter 1991, of the historic original radiometer adaptor used on the 24" Clark refractor for early 20th-century scientific measurements of Mars' temperature and atmosphere, shown in front of one of Percival Lowell's maps of Martian "canals".
We seem to recall that even the late Carl Sagan, in his youngest years, had no real doubts about the Martian canals -- but of course, like a good scientist, he and his colleagues were quick to abandon the notion as soon as real data were obtained by modern electronic-based observation. That's the wonderful thing about science. Data can overcome accepted theories and paradigms without bloodshed and revolution; rather there is an endless evolution of data-sampling and sophisticated analysis, leading forward to greater and more accurate insight. Unfortunately, perhaps, for amateur astronomers, the professionals almost NEVER seem to look back. For us, one of the joys of being an amateur is to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of our predecessors without feeling embarrassment or committing scientific suicide. Thus, viewing a jumbled mass of spurious, nonexistent "canals" in a small telescope, early in the evening when Mars was bobbling around like a cork in a stormy sea, seemed to be a delicious long-sought experience, connecting us with countless other investigators in long past times.
Lowell Observatory: Percival Lowell's Mars Markings Globes
Percival Lowell's map globes of the markings of Mars, on display at the Visitors' Center at Lowell Observatory; photo by Regina during Christmas season of winter 1991, with reflections of festive Christmas tree lights on the display cabinet's glass front.
And Stephen and I had the wonderful opportunity to visit Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff during winter of 1991; to see the historic 24" Clark Refractor used by Lowell for his "canal" observations; and to chat with Lowell staff astronomer Brian Skiff about the historical facility. Many of the original works of Lowell are on display: his charts of Martian "canals", and his map globes of the planet. Thus, Stephen's own 'connection' to the canals seemed at last to be fully realized.
Lowell Observatory: Percival Lowell's Mausoleum, photo by S. Waldee, Dec. 1991
The mausoleum of Percival Lowell, built in the form of a telescope dome on the grounds of Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona (Regina Roper on left); photo by S. Waldee taken December 1991.
The canal effect is shown in the first of two drawings Stephen made the following day. He tried to record the vague, tenuous "connections" between general dark masses, a creation of the brain as it tries to make sense of an array of varying light-dark high contrast regions. Percival Lowell over-studied these blurry distortions and turned them into a caricature of sharp delineations: narrow circumferential ditches between loci that he supposed to be the pumping stations and oases present at the conjunctions of the water irrigation system on an arid, dying planet. See his original maps for Mars at --http://www.resa.net/nasa/canals.htm
http://www.wanderer.org/references/lowell/Mars/map.html
-- and you will confirm the prodigious imagination that led to his mindset; this is especially poignant if you too have had the chance to view Mars in a typical small telescope.
First Drawing Of Mars, as Observed on August 23, 2003 by SRW
Experts, Please Note: Stephen made this drawing from memory, the day after viewing Mars at La Honda Elementary School. Unfortunately he had no drawing materials available right at the eyepiece, so the arrangement of surface markings, size of the polar cap, and other details are NOT precisely correct; this image was done to record his general impressions and feelings about what he saw, and the tendency of the dark markings to blend into barely- discerned linearities. As Beethoven said of his "Pastorale" Symphony, this is not to be taken as an absolute depiction but rather as an impression. ALPO folks: sorry for the amateurism of this attempt!
The Italian Mars observer Schiaparelli, ten or fifteen years earlier than Lowell, had drawn even more bizarrely stylized "simplifications" of the "canali" illusions. So, when the Mars canal craze burst on the public scene in the last few decades of the 19th century, it happened to coincide with some technological issues that assisted in its promulgation. Again, many telescopes and observatories were unable to provide alternative, superior imagery; and the newspaper, periodical, and book printing methods of the time were really suited to showing only graphic depictions of high contrast line drawings, not the gradual shadings necessary for photorealism. So the "canals" looked spectacular in the further-simplified newspaper prints and magazine pictures, and captured the imagination of the public. Peripatic amateur astronomers often trod the public streets in those days, offering the public a quick glimpse of the Moon and planets for a few pence. But it was natural for the person-in-the-street, exposed to such a shaky, fuzzy view, to imagine that 'professionals' must have ideal optics and perfect recording skills; ergo their weird drawings were accepted as being utter reality: an example of the logical fallacy of trusting authority without verification.
Art Deco tinted glass ceiling fixture depicting Saturn: photo by R. Roper
This exquisite art-deco designed tinted glass Saturn ceiling lamp is one of the unique features in the library of the Lowell Observatory visitors' center in Flagstaff.
To get back to our viewing experience: Stephen, long a fan of old-timey astronomical observing, had long craved this experience himself, even though he KNEW it was an illusory one. At last he had it! I am sorry to say, though, that *I* -- Regina -- did not share his excitement. To me, Mars was a pretty featureless poor thing. I did easily discern the exquisite pearl-dropping of the polar cap; but the rest of the planet was NOT coalescing into "Stephen's canals" to MY eye. But he has calculated that he spent more than 2,000 hours at various telescope eyepieces during the years 1979 to 1999 at Loma Prieta mountain south of San Jose, not to mention more years from childhood forward at other locales. I have been a "good time observer" in comparison, happy to stare at the starry skies with binoculars or small Astroscan, and to take my turn at the eyepiece of the "big" scopes when I could pry away the boys from their fun. At Mt. Hamilton for the eight seasons that I directed the "Music of the Spheres" concerts, I always had the chance to view through the Tauchmann or even the 36" Refractor and 40" reflector. Those views were really unambiguous: what you saw just hit you in the face with detail and brilliance. These "small" eight and ten inch telescopes are -- comparatively -- just toys, but greatly useful, fun, and informative ones nonetheless.
Lick staffer Shiloh Unruh, guitarist Dan Roest, and Regina on the steps
leading to the dome of the Great 36" Refractor at Lick
So perhaps I am mentally attuned to what I remember seeing in the big professional scopes (such as our stunning "Hubble quality" view of Saturn in the Great 36" Refractor during moments of exception seeing in 1988.) Sadly, the full time astronomers of today have probably not even had MY experiences at the eyepiece. They just don't care. What can it profit them? It's all been seen and reported before -- inaccurately, unscientifically, unrepeatably. Today it's all DATA ... data that can be sifted, argued, and processed into the mush of numbers that makes up "scientific knowledge". That's really important, but -- frankly -- important ONLY to a relatively small percentage of the population of our good Earth. The rest of us crave experience; experience AND feelings! You get both at the eyepiece of a good telescope. Add convivial companions, pleasant weather, and a good steaming, piping hot cup of coffee (perhaps sneaking a peanut-butter cup or two on the side) and you have the "amateur astronomy experience" at its finest and most entertaining. Back to the account of our Mars session: After his frisson at the experience of the false canals, Stephen and I made our way around the other instruments set up at La Honda Elementary School, waiting for Mars to reach at least 20 degrees elevation with steadier seeing. We had some nice views through several excellent instruments, including a fine ED-glass equipped Vixen-Orion 4" aperture wide field refractor (sadly, no longer available), using superb Vixen "Lanthanum" oculars. Views of the Lagoon Nebula were crystal clear, with heavy dark lanes and glowing bright patches and brilliant sparklers, in a large field of view that also included the fainter Trifid nebula. We've experienced this visage often at dark sky sites in central and southern California, but we had to admit that this was darned good, aided and abetted by the pinpoint-precise star images (with even a trace of Airy disk rings) from the excellent objective lens and eyepieces. A very nice gentleman -- whose name were are sad to say we didn't get -- was recently-returned to the Santa Clara valley after some years' residence in Canada, and who, like us, had found out about the night's session from Mr. Adams' publicity on the Internet. He had a spanking-new Meade f/10 Schmidt-Cassegrain (who *can* remember all these ever-changing model numbers??) with every bell and whistle available: heavy duty wedge, motorized focuser, full computer tracking and slewing control with tens of thousands of astronomical objects memorized in its convenient database. It tracked flawlessly and stayed steadily centered, with no trace of "churning"; and the optics were really just as fine as the Vixen refractor's, with pinpoint star images to the very edge of the eyepiece field-stop (namely, a Meade 26 mm Ploessl.) Sadly, the owner of this wonderful instrument no longer had his regular eyepiece case containing a large compliment of expensive oculars and filters: it had been stolen from his former apartment in Windsor, Ontario. At least now he'll have the fun of picking and choosing and buying a new set all over again (which we'll no doubt do one of these days, if I make good on my resolution to retire to New Mexico in a decade or so.) This fine fellow, who unlike MOST amateur astronomers of our acquaintance was NOT an engineer, had a career as a medical writer in the field of health care. We had a good visit and were impressed with his warm humanity and experience, as he loved the sky passionately and had done so since childhood; his father had been a WW2 navigator who had taught his son to appreciate the stars. He shared reminiscences with Stephen about Sputnik, and reading the classic old books about astronomy given to children two generations ago. In those days, kids COULD go outside at night and see the stellar firmament in most places. So a love of being under the stars was pretty easy to engender. Well, there's still a chance to pass this along to at least a FEW young people, if their parents have the imagination and patience to take their offspring to a star party. There's more to life than sitting in front of a computer screen. Finally we gravitated back to Mr. John Adams' "little" refractor for our best views of Mars. Once again, Stephen was bowled over, now that Mars had risen to another ten or fifteen degrees' gain in elevation, and pronounced his views -- around midnight to one o'clock -- perhaps the second best in his life, irrespective of telescope. And the charm of it was that this relatively inexpensive and modest machine had provided it, not a massive and costly contraption. (Yet, he was SO impressed with the Meade, and its ability to slew across the sky from M27 to M74 by only pushing handset buttons, that he's decided that someday he MUST have one! He says that it's far better to spend two minutes finding an object and 90 minutes LOOKING at it, than the other way around. Why, a fellow could *really* get something done with an instrument like this -- at least as long as the gel-cell holds up!)
Second Drawing Of Mars, as Observed on August 23, 2003 by SRW
Stephen made this drawing from memory, the day after viewing Mars at La Honda Elementary School, to depict his impressions -- though not to precise graphical and scientific accuracy -- of surface details and contrast seen in a 4" aperture f/15 refractor. After consulting Lowell's map, we believe that we recorded the "oasis" Solis Lacus, and the "canal region" Hydriacus.
We parted convivially around 1 AM, the good-byes of the three dedicated observers who weren't quitting yet, ringing in our ears. We couldn't handle any more, as Stephen had been up since 6AM and I had been up almost as long as he -- and *I* had spent the day actually WORKING on something important around here at the Roper Piano Studio. We knew when to quit at the "high point" -- and did so with no regret, just the fine sense of satisfaction and pleasure of a night long to be remembered. Ironically, we heard a few days later from our friend Sue Hall, a Fremont, CA., park ranger who used to work in the Lick Observatory gift shop, that the view of Mars with the 36" Refractor at Mount Hamilton, on the night of the closest opposition, was rather poor, with no detail visible aside from a shimmery and indistinct south polar cap. Once again, large aperture is NOT always the best tool for viewing Mars during imperfect seeing; for on the slopes of Mt. Hamilton, amateur astronomer Rich Neushaefer had set up his 7" aperture Astro-Physics Star-Fire refractor, and Sue reports that the planet looked great in the eyepiece of that much smaller, but excellent, instrument. So perhaps amateur astronomers with smallish to moderate sized telescopes have had many of the best eyepiece views of Mars this opposition, as has sometimes been the case in the past. One thing to remember: news reports on TV, radio, and even Internet websites have tended to emphasize the night of Tuesday 27 August 2003 as THE moment to see Mars. Poppycock! There is nothing magical about the 'moment' of closest opposition, for Mars will be visible for weeks or even months afterward, as the distance from Earth inexorably increases -- until cycling toward the NEXT opposition. What will be most important factors are the sky conditions, and the elevation of Mars above the horizon; not just the moment of narrowest separation. So, try, try again -- and good viewing!Regina Roper - Piano Teacher, San Jose, CA., and her husband Steve Waldee
(Former Lick Observatory volunteer and musician in the Lick "Music of the Spheres" concert series) - see:
http://home.earthlink.net/~regina-piano/music/concert.htm
Astronomy observing software page: http://home.earthlink.net/~steve_waldee/index.html
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