A. First Announcement in 2008
It is our pleasure to announce that the International Workshop on one Century of Mars Observations (IWCMO) has been ready for being held on 18, 19, and 20 September 2009 at the Meudon Observatory, France. It was on 20 September in 1909 that E M ANTONIADI met with a perfect seeing for two hours ("Les plus belles images que j'ai eues sur Mars avec cet instrument (la lunette de 0m83) ont été celles du 20 septembre 1909, qui restèrent parfaites pendant plus de deux heures"), and so we may say this was the instance when the modern observations of Mars has begun. A letter of E E BARNARD to ANTONIADI in November 1909 also suggests a heartened revival of BARNARD. Furthermore it was also in 1909 that the Lowell Observatory started to take pictures of Mars by the use of the so-called Blue filters and opened a way to a modern investigation of the Martian atmosphere. This is therefore an International Meeting of Mars Observers and Historians on the occasion of the Centennial of the historical epoch of the observation of Martian landscapes and atmospheres. The International Organising Committee consists of Nicolas BIVER (General Secretary), Richard McKIM, Masatsugu MINAMI, Donald PARKER, Christophe PELLIER, William SHEEHAN and some others (to be confirmed): Audouin DOLLFUS, to hold a honourable position, paid a following hearty tribute; "It will be for me a great honour and a deep interest to attend the meeting on Mars in September 2009 at Observatoire de Meudon. I look forward to the pleasure to meet all my friends and to hear about the last results on Mars observations and the fascinating history of the steps of acquisition of knowledge about the planet during the past centuries, when the only tool of the astronomers was to look visually through a telescope." Nicolas BIVER (SAF, Meudon) has recently written a proposal of IWCMO to ask the auspices of the French Committee of the International Year of Astronomy 2009, and it is uploaded in
http://wwwusr2.obspm.fr/~biver/IWCMO/iwcmo.pdf
B.
CAPEN Crater on Mars
Name: Capen
As to Chick CAPEN's life and personality, refer to Jeff BEISH's Web Site:
C.
2007/2008 Mars Apparition Ended
Don PARKER and Jeff BEISH communicated a pleasant news to us on 10 January that their friend and mentor Charles F "Chick" CAPEN (1926-1986) finally got a Martian crater named in his honor: "A 70 km crater on Mars, located at 6.57N, 345.73W, has been named for the American astronomer Charles F. Capen."
It was officially approved by IAU on 2 January 2008, and the IAU data of the crater are as follows
Starting latitude: 6.0°N
Ending latitude: 7.2°N
Centre latitude: 6.6°N
Starting longitude: 345.1°W
Ending longitude: 346.3°W
Centre Longitude: 345.7°W
Size: 70 km
Quad: MC-12
http://www.dustymars.net/ChickCapen.html
Our season of the 2007/2008 Mars, which started in February 2007, came to an
end in mid-July 2008, and our Mars Gallery was closed on 6 August 2008.