I stopped at a fellow ASH member's roll-off roof observatory briefly last night to have a look at Mars through his 152mm f/9 Astro-Physics Starfire refractor. A 7mm Pentax ortho and a Wratten #21 orange filter provided us with some rather good views of the now obviously gibbous -1.7 magnitude Mars. The CM was 308.7 degrees at the time and the SPC, Syrtis Major, and other features were evident. Hellas was bright but so was another area near the daytime limb, another dust storm in the making perhaps.

We also observed the waning gibbous Moon. The crater Gutenberg (the Lobster Claw) was well illuminated as were several interesting rilles and other features in that general area.

Dave Mitsky

__________________
Chance favors the prepared mind.
De gustibus non est disputandum.
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.