[Robert_T]

Hi All, mars from the evening of the 30th finally got round to processing. Seeing was quite odd, stars looked very steady by eye, but the little disk of Mars was jiggling about quite a bit (defocussed star images showed no tube currents). There was also a very marked atmospheric refraction with distinct big blue and red fringe opposite. View through the eyepiece I couldn't give the seeing more than 4-5 out of 10.

Let's face it, it's getting small now, somewhere between 8 and 9 arc sec. There aint much to see and this is the "duller" side of Mars to boot. If it weren't for the 4x powermate there wouldn't be anything at all. Ah well, it's still part of the record of this opposition.

cheers,