Nicolas BIVER #213

Letters to the Editor


From Nicolas BIVER in CMO #213

@ . . . . . I have been travelling quite often those past months (2 weeks to France in December/January, 2 weeks to Mauna Kea this February) and I will keep on these frequent travels for the next months. So I am a bit late to thank you for your Season's Greetings, CMOs and for Higa's Video Tape (I guess I am not productive enough in drawings to make a video of them !)

  Otherwise, weather here, always has the similar pattern: 1 to 2 months of bad seeing and a few days when it improves significantly. Hence after ~ 1 month without any image worth drawing (and even 14 and 31 January drawings are quite poor), I made 3 drawings in the single night of the 15th of February.

  The main features were:
  - Bright, white Hellas (as bright as north polar hood/cap)
  - Elysium well visible when at the meridian, then brighter/whitish at the sunset limb)
  - NPC rather hard to see: embedded in a larger polar haze? Rather easier to see on the next drawings when it looked quite small and on the limb (Mars tilt decreasing, it is getting harder to see)
  - Possibly bright haze on the limb on the 17UT drawing (north of S Meridiani) while Syrtis Mj was readily visible around 13UT at the same limb
  Otherwise, dark features were/are now quite obvious, as the seeing was rather good on that night, and the diameter already 9".

Have clear and stable skies

(18 Feb 1999)

@ . . . . . Thank you for acknowledging the reception of my mail and drawings. It looks like once more I sent them a bit late, and I am very sorry you receive them just after editing the new issue of CMO. This time, it looks like US postal service did not help, as it took 6 days (minus the one day difference we have) from Honolulu to Japan, though there are tens of daily flights in between!
  Otherwise, I hope to be more active this coming March: no trip on the Big Island of Hawaii should interfere, though I did got some spectra of Carbon Monoxide (at 345 GHz) in Mars atmosphere last Week-End - while taking calibrations: is someone interested in these? (February 27.6 and 28.6 UT).
  I hope to take a look at Mars back as soon as possible, when I will be rather free again (I have visitors until this Friday), hoping for good seeing too.

(3 Mar 1999 email)

Nicolas BIVER ( Hawaii, USA )   biver@IfA.Hawaii.Edu