From Francis OGER
@. . . . . Dear Masami Murakami: Yesterday
evening, I showed Sorbonne Observatory to the public, which was only 4 persons
since the observatory is narrow.
The following impressions on Mars
are of course not worth writing in CMO.
1) At 21h30 UT, the center of the disk was covered by a large bright
area, even though yellow rather than white, which was encircled, except at the
right, by a well delimited narrow dark area. Nearer to the south pole (at the
top), but not around the pole, there was another narrow horizontal dark area.
2) At 23h30 UT, after the last subway had gone, I observed Mars again
alone. North and south pole areas were bright, with darker areas around them.
The bright area in the center of the disk had gone left and partially
disappeared at the left. The delimitations did not look so clear.
I came back home with the
first subway and arrived at
The seeing conditions were excellent at
21h30 UT, but the images were less stable at 23h30 UT. I used the 153 mm
refractor with 230x and 460x magnification, but 460x did not show more detail.
I am sorry the scanner in our
computer room is still not repaired, so that I cannot send you a tentative
drawing.
It was a pleasure for me to see the
images on your internet site and receive the news by e-mail. Do you think that
the bright area in the center at 23h30 UT was a part of your big dust cloud?
With best wishes for clear skies.
(
Francis
OGER (