STARLOG

PEEK-A-BOO ASTRONOMY

MAY 30, 2016

Despite some rain earlier this morning, the Sun had managed to banish most of the clouds by afternoon, enough so that I felt confident in having a Memorial Day cookout. By late afternoon, the sky was almost clear. Did I dare hope for a night out with my telescope? I was really wanting to take a good look at Mars tonight, in honor of its closest approach for the year.

Come sunset, clouds began moving back in again, but they were spotty and thin in places. Disappointed, I proverbially threw my observing list out the window, but as long as I could still see Jupiter and Mars, all would not be lost. The backyard was still a bit muddy from the recent rains, so I set up my gear in my front driveway.

My house faces somewhat northwest (we're on a circle drive, so directions get screwy), so that meant Mars would be rising from behind my house. I would have to wait a bit before it had risen high enough in the sky to peek above the roof, but the atmosphere would be too murky when it was lower than that, anyway.

While waiting on the arrival of the God of War, I took aim at Jupiter. He had his back to me, and was flanked on either side by Europa and Callisto. Io and Ganymede were currently hidden from view by his shadow. Jupiter himself was a wavy blob - lots of atmospheric distortion. I realized I had forgotten to turn on my cooling fan. I plugged it in and within a few minutes, the view had improved quite a bit and Jupiter had settled down well enough to see some details. Several dark bands were visible. The Southern Equatorial Belt was split in two by another white cloud band and there was a large oval present as well in the southern hemisphere.

I watched for several minutes and then noticed that the view was starting to get foggy. I took a lens pen and wiped away at my eyepiece, but the view didn't improve. I glanced up at the sky and found the culprit: some thin upper-level clouds were moving in, and had begun to cover Leo. In fact, only two or three stars in Leo were still visible.

Dismayed, I scanned the rest of the sky. Ursa Minor - vanished. Ursa Major - only the tail stars were visible in the Great Bear. Boötes was still relatively intact. Virgo - Spica was clearly visible, but Porrima had disappeared.

I moved around to the side of the house. Yes! Mars was still in the clear! But the clouds were closing in. It was going to be a race to see whether it would above my rooftop before the clouds covered it.

I tried to track down a few other sights while I waited on Mars, but I wasn't able to see enough stars in any given constellation to get my bearings. Frustrated, I went back inside for a bit to wait for Mars to rise a bit higher.

I came back outside to find that conditions had not improved any. In fact, the clouds were getting awfully close to Mars now. When sitting up, I could see Mars coming up above the roof, but when leaning back down to the scope, it was still a bit too low to see. I aimed my telescope right above the roofline to where Mars would make his appearance. Finally, I spotted it in the finderscope. Yay! Looking into the eyepiece, I only saw roof. Darn! It was high enough to be seen by the finderscope, but not the telescope yet. I would have to wait a few more minutes.

I kept following it in the finderscope until I was able to spot it in the telescope as well. There it was: An orange blob with no details, slowly fading as it rose higher. Fading? I looked up and saw nothing. Where's Mars? The cloud monsters had eaten him for lunch. Arrgh!

Frustrated, I went back inside for a few minutes. My wife asked me if I was done already. I told her "Maybe. The clouds have eaten Mars. I only got to see him for about 30 seconds."

I grabbed a quick drink of iced tea (it was warm and very humid) and went back outside. I would give the sky five more minutes. If Mars hadn't reappeared by then, I was going to pack up.

Five minutes came and went. No Mars. So I took my eyepiece out of the focuser and began packing stuff away. My eyepiece case was sitting on a trashcan by the garage door, and at night I am extremely careful not to drop anything, so I carried the eyepieces one by one to the case, covered them with their protective caps, and put them away. As I was walking my last eyepiece from the telescope to the case, I saw a dim star begin to emerge from the clouds.

Was that Spica? No, Spica was over there. Mars! It was coming back! I unpacked my eyepieces again and focused my telescope once more on the Red Planet. It was still half hidden in some thin clouds, but the telescope was able to punch through enough that I could make out the Northern Polar Cap, surrounded by a dark green band of varying width. The more "barren" side of Mars was facing us and very few additional details were visible. I knew from my map of Mars that I should be able to see Olympus Mons, but I couldn't confirm it: the seeing just wasn't that great. I barlowed my 11mm eyepiece to get 345X. Mars appeared larger, but no additional details could be seen. I studied Mars for about 20 minutes, but couldn't squeeze any more details out of it.

I glanced back at the sky. Still cloudy, but Jupiter was now in a thinner band of clouds than before, so I took another peek at it before calling it a night. By now, Jupiter had turned his big red bloodshot eye towards Earth. Ganymede and Io were still hidden in his shadow, but the Great Red Spot was lovely. I stared at him for several minutes, looking at the swirls in the cloud bands.

The sky was clouding up even more now and I could no longer see enough stars to make out any constellations. Time to call it quits. But I was happy to at least get to see Jupiter and Mars again.