FEATURES VISIBLE ON MARS (Updated)

Location:  Front porch, Little Lepreau, NB, Canada

Date Time:  October 18, 2018 1900-0038 hrs

Weather:  Clear, gusty winds, up to 65 kph through day, dying off to 27 kph through evening, 3C with windchill of -2C.  Heavy frost present next morning.  No bugs, no dew.

Equipment:  Meade LX 200 8" telescope with camera adapter, 19 mm eyepiece, Canon Rebel Xsi with 18-55 mm lens.  Images processed on Photobucket.com

Attendance:  Myself.

Report:

• Gibbous Moon was in conjunction with Mars in the South East as it was starting to get dark at 1900 hrs.  The two objects were approximately 5 degrees apart.  High winds made imaging impossible until later in the night when they died off some.

• Mars was bright, reddish with polar cap and features visible in the center of disk, in the 19 mm eyepiece.  Due to a subsiding dust storm on Mars, there is more to see across it's disk now, than when it was closer to Earth in July.

• Saturn was huge and spectacular in 19 mm eyepiece with rings steeply inclined.  Heavy winds were high while it was still above horizon, preventing good images.  Saturn is very interestingly placed just above the Teapot of Sagittarius.  At first glance, Saturn looks like a part of the Teapot asterism.
• Winds died down around midnight allowing for imaging.  First, imaged the gibbous moon with camera attached to telescope at prime focus.  Then imaged moon with focal reducer attached.
• Viewed and imaged the impressive double star Albireo which was just above the NW tree line.  The contrast between the close reddish star and bluish star is remarkable.  This double star is a great high magnitude object.  Imaged with camera attached to telescope with focal reducer.

• Imaged Pleiades (M45) with camera attached to telescope with focal reducer.  Also imaged this area of sky with camera and 18-55mm lens, as it rises in the East through the evening and early night.

• Imaged the Constellations Orion which was low in the East, and Cygnus, halfway up in the NW sky, at around 0030hrs.

• No satellites and 1 shooting star was seen, which was faint, in the Eastern sky crossing between Taurus and Orion.