From Elisabeth SIEGEL
®
. . . . . . . .Date: Tue, 2 Dec 2003 12:22:59 +0100
Subject:
November drawings coming
Dear
Masatsugu,
Yesterday I posted my
November drawings to you, so they should hopefully arrive in a couple of days. Seven
drawings was all that it amounted to in November - and I can tell you that I
haven't missed a single clear evening, they're all there!
This time, for once, I
think I may have observed something that may be of interest, as it seemed a bit
out of the ordinary. It concerns the observations of November
19 and November 28; on both these occasions, I noticed a tiny,
circular, really bright spot in W 47 on the morning side of the disk, quite
close to the terminator, and near the north point of the disk. The November 19
spot was the most striking - it looked like some little, wildly misplaced polar
cap, glowing whitishly on an otherwise quite dark W
47 background. (You'll find more details in the observing notes to these
observations, of course.) At the time of each observation, I had no idea what
these spots could be. But I have a very good Mars globe (from Sky &
Telescope), so after each observing session I consulted the globe, taking
care to reproduce the CM and tilt of each observation as correctly as possible
- and found out (much to my surprise!) that the Nov. 19 bright spot seemed to
coincide most nicely with the summit of Elysium Mons, whereas the Nov. 28
similar spot coincided just as nicely with the summit of Ascræus Mons.
This really fascinated
me, both because I've never observed the volcanoes before (at least not with
any degree of certainty), and because I am not aware that they usually show up
as bright on the MORNING limb. I have written a similar note to Richard McKim about these spots and got a quick reply, wherein he
suggests that they may represent surface frost on the summits of the volcanoes,
which sounds quite likely. (He hasn't yet received the drawings either, so he
just reacted to my description of the spots in an e-mail.)
I would be immensely
grateful if you could enlighten me on your personal opinion of these matters,
once you've received and seen the drawings. Both bright spots were NOT just
caught in glimpses or seen at the limit of visibility, but quite easily and
steadily seen, so that I, personally, have absolutely no doubts about their
reality. And they looked really strange!!
Best wishes to you and
our OAA colleagues, yours sincerely,
Elisabeth
SIEGEL (Malling,
