2 0 0 9 P a r i s / M
e u d o n
IWCMO Conference
Greg MORT: Mars in Real Time: Can we examine the MARS of yesterday by using
modern
methods of today ?
Talk at the IWCMO conference,
的t is
unlikely that there were real features on Mars even slightly resembling
1980
COSMOS Carl Sagan
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f one could travel
back in time and view Mars as it was one hundred years ago using modern
telescopic equipment might there be information that would illuminate the
lingering 鼎anal Enigma ? To date,
science has failed to produce such a 典ime Machine, yet there may be a
technique to do just that.
In April of 2009, a
group of astronomers from
Familiar to amateur
planetary imagers today is a wondrous computer imaging tool known as Registax. Created by Dutchman Cor
Berrevoets, and made available as freeware over the
internet, it enables an observer to capture live video stream data and then run
through the many frames selecting those that contain the most detailed
information. This amazing program has allowed amateurs with backyard telescopes
to produce stunning planetary detail not even possible by the largest
telescopes a few years ago.
With kind co-operation,
from the Lowell Observatory in 
Alvin Clark refractor on 溺ars Hill near the
turn of the twentieth century. Most of the images consist of twenty five or
thirty exposures on a single plate. These 4 ﾗ 5 plates were a system used to
record as many Mars images in rapid succession in a short amount of time with
the hope of capturing a moment of 敵ood Seeing. Many
of the plates contain poor quality images making them of little use. Others,
however, show more tantalizing details.
Could the Registax program be applied to the dusty old Mars images
from decades earlier? It was a curious
idea that intrigued me.
After selecting the
plates that showed the most promise and cleaning them up on photoshop,
(many literally were dusty) I was ready to begin. This took some doing as each
tiny 1/8 Mars image had to be isolated as a single entity. I hoped my efforts
would prove fruitful.
I realized that the
limited number of Mars images per plate was going to be a slight problem. The Registax program works best when several hundred frames can
be selected from. (The larger the number of frames,
generally, the less 哲oise in the final image production.) To overcome
this I repeated the selection a number of times. That is, a group of twenty
five was repeated four times, creating one hundred images to run through. This
greatly improved the overall quality of the final image before processing.
After the initial alignment of each frame and stacking, the program allows the
operator to increase contrast, brightness and a function known as 努avelet.
These tools can
dramatically enhance even the most elusive, subtle details. The final results
were more impressive than I could have imagined and show a Mars very different
from the one we can see today. The images suggest a Martian landscape with many
more linear 
markings, a good number, in fact, that seem to
correspond to the maps at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning
of the twentieth. The results clearly show that the observers in those years
did see and record features that were more than mere 登ptical illusions or
妬magined markings. True, many of their renderings are exaggerated in that the
lines drawn are very 
narrow and well defined, hard edged. This is
due to an effect which I call 典elescopic Compression Subtle, soft edged
markings when viewed from a great distance (even much less than 35 million
miles) tend to be seen as hard edged more well delineated than they are in
reality. The conclusions that were arrived at that the 鼎anals were of
intelligent origin of course proved 
wrong but their 天isual Existence was not a
product of wild imaginings, a conclusion often stated by historical examiners
of the canal problem.
These results, of
course, do raise and interesting question. Where are
they now? Why have the fabled 溺artian Canals faded from view? We know that
Mars is a place of dramatic dust storms and changing albedo
features. Richard McKim, fabled Mars observer of the
BAA Mars Section points out in his forward of Telescopic Martian Dust Storms (Volume 44), that the level
(amount) of dust on Mars 妬s inexorably increasing with time. To illustrate
this I致e included a rendering that demonstrates how even large scale areas (in
this case Syrtis Major) 
(Fig. 1) have undergone significant
reformation in a few decades. Even in my personal observing years, (of only 25
yrs.) I have witnessed a rapidly evolving terrain. With each successive
opposition I always find it shocking how prominent features have evolved in only
two years. So, do any of these so called 天isual Canals still remain? The
answer seems to be, YES. There is an excellent example in the diagonally
marking, almost always represented on old Mars maps, between Meridiani Sinus 
and Edom Prom. (Figure 2.)
This well defined line shows well in contemporary CCD images. Other examples
exist, but the majority of them, I believe have been altered, rubbed out by the
relentless Martian winds and dust storms. Are the observers who recorded the
bygone data showing a Mars laden with streaks and geometric features at last
(in a very real sense) vindicated? Were they actually seeing tangible markings?
Have the planet痴 light and dark albedo markings
evolved in a more accelerated rate than originally thought possible? Was the
Mars of a hundred years ago at least more 鼎anal like visually? Lastly, will the future landscape of Mars be
very different than the one we see today? Will other 鼎anal Like features
return? Future Mars observers, Mars and Time. not a 典ime Machine, alone will
tell.
Greg MORT,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MjeGOsM3Ss
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Mort