Mars (20 Mar 1997) by K OKANO

  We here cited one of the best CCD images of the 1997 Mars made in Japan, which was taken in Tokyo by Kunihiko OKANO at the opposition time (16:52GMT) on 20 March 1997 (reported at page 2081 in CMO #190).
  The season was at 093 degsLs, and LCM=181 degs?, DE=23 degsN, and the apparent diameter=14.2".
  OKANO used a 31cm speculum equipped with an ST-5. The image was obtained with the exposure time 0.1 secs by the use of an orange filter (O56). The image was processed by an MEM.

  OKANO once visited Fukui on the occasion of the OAA convention in 1994, and gave a talk on the CCD technique for the planetary observations. OKANO is however not a Mars observer, and we don't know how many images he took in 1997. He just works as a mentor in various fields of CCD images, and some of our members (eg. AKUTSU, NISHITA and others) have been influenced by him.

D PARKER's images (7 Mar 1997)    left: Red   right: Blue

  In the Japanese part, we tried to discuss about some characteristics of the image including some possible ghosts by comparing with the CCD images by Don PARKER taken on 7 March 1997 (087degsLs) at LCM=153 degsW and the HST images on 10 March 1997 (089degsLs).

HST's images (10 Mar 1997)     left: Red   right: Blue

OKANO's home-page is at the following URL: