Year: 2003

I tried to capture an image of Mars last night, but the fates weren’t with me and the globe seemed elusive. I could see it in the telescope but it was a dull yellow pink in color, not the vibrant rust-orange we’ve come to expect from Mars.

We’ve had no rain and St. Louis is one of the ten worst cities for air pollution though thanks to the cooler temperatures we haven’t had the problems we had last year. With the morning rain, I hoped the air would be clearer, and set the telescope up on the back deck.

I spotted Mars peeking out from behind the big tree on the corner and was turning the telescope around when bright flashes of light caught the corner of my eye. As fast as Mars was heading to the West, a storm was heading to the East. A beautiful and usual storm, too, and I was momentarily tempted to take photos of it, until I came to my senses and recalled exactly which event is the less frequent.

I have a good camera, a Nikon 995, but not a beauty like a D100 or even, in my dreams, a D1X. I have a good telescope, a Meade ETX70, but not a powerhouse like the 14″ Schmidt-Cassegrain. Added to the mix, I don’t have an attachment that will allow me to take photos through the special port on the telescope and I have to use the eye piece. This is my way of saying that my photos of Mars are properly orange, helped a bit by the haze and the 800 ISO camera setting, and I guess we’ll need to be content with that.

This photo was dead centered in the telescope. Notice that no real detail of the planet shows, including, unfortunately, the polar ice cap. No matter how I tweaked the telescope, and which lens I used, the ice cap wouldn’t come through.

I have found with the moon at least that sometimes taking a more oblique photo of the object can bring out details. I tried that with the next shot, and if nothing else, there’s more of a suggestion of roundness to the photo.

Finally, after 2 hours of taking photos and a storm quickly moving in, I managed to get the following. Now, whether the streak was something to do with my telescope, or a reflection of the major canyon system on the Red planet, I don’t know…and I don’t care. If I call it a Martian detail, it is, henceforth, a Martian detail.

Of course, Hubble photos blow away my own little attempts, but that’s not the point. The point is standing on your deck and taking a picture of another planet. All the wonderous photos from Hubble and all the major telescopes and all the detail combined won’t dim my satisfaction in these, my little orange balls of fuzz.

This photo I’ll leave for you all as I drag myself to bed after two nights up late, chasing a globe of war.

This week Mars is closer to our planet than at any other time in the last 60,000 years. In anticipation of a couple of night time field trips this week to see the ruby beauty, I spent the day yesterday with my telescope trying to figure out how to use the star/planet automatic tracking system. I can operate and maintain most types of computers, was first in my class in electronics in college, and can even program a VCR — you would think I could figure out how to program the telescope, wouldn’t you?

My mother gave me the telescope for Christmas two years ago. I’d been eying them for years, but just couldn’t bring myself to plunk down the money. I’d never told my mother I wanted a telescope — she just thought they’d make good presents, and sent one to me.

When I was in San Francisco, I used the telescope to look from my apartment out onto the harbor at the boats and the birds, and once seeing a shark attack a pelican, but I didn’t use it at night. I felt that people might misconstrue it’s use at night.

After I moved to Missouri, I’ve used it to look at and take photos of the moon, but this week is the first I’ve tried to use the automated features of the beasty, to faciliate my Mars viewing experience. Last night out on the back porch in 96+ F (in Celsius, “hot”) degree weather, I spent a happy hour training the telescope so that I can have it automatically find objects for me, and then track them once fixed. I viewed constellations and what might have been Uranus, lost in the heat haze and street light reflections. Unfortunately, light polution and a big tree blocked Mars, but tomorrow and Wednesday, I’ll move to more telescope friendly areas. To see Mars with my own eye, directly — what a wonder.

Thinking about people who love art but don’t necessarily love nature — I wonder if sometimes an artist isn’t more of a translator than anything else, interpreting the beauty of every day things for those who can’t see the beauty any other way. The artist is inspired to create art to inspire others who cannot be inspired by that which inspired the artist.

Who cannot be excited about seeing Mars directly, who cannot be moved by a night filled with stars or a full moon. Yet people will go into raptures about Vincent van Gogh’s masterpiece, Starry Night, and never spare a glance for a night sky unless its filled with neon and they have a martini in their hand.

Not van Gogh, though. I picture van Gogh, half mad, which is worse than being fully mad, pacing about at night because he can’t quiet the demons long enough to sleep. In one breathless, immortal moment, he lifts his head and looks out over the sleeping town below, and at the stars blazing in the heavens above on this crisp, cool night. In perfect clarity, he sees the glory of the stars, their truth, as they burned themselves into his soul and hence to his art, so that he may show those below him what they miss in their sleep and their sanity.

But I will refrain from falling into the trap of the inevitable by including the lyrics to Starry, Starry Night, though I do like the song. Besides, I know you’ve been humming it under your breath since you read the title.