Hi

Conditions were good yesterday morning, with good transparency and better than average seeing (but very dewey). I was capturing some deep space objects with the ED80, with the plan to image Mars when it got higher.

I almost left it too late though, and only managed to capture a few runs before Mars went too far to the North and behind a tree from my vantage point. That'll teach me for doing deep space imaging!!

Seeing was good for a change.. Mars had certainly got a bit bigger since I last captured it in good conditions back in May when it was only 5.4".

At this CM (South is up), Sinus Meridiani (where the rover Opportuntiy is currently exploring) and Mare Erythraeum are the main darker features to the South and Niliacus Lacus is the dark patch above the NPH. Chryse is the bright region between the two.

Captured with my 12" newt on EQ6, DMK21AF04 + 5x powermate + Astronomik RGB filters. (Red channel: 30fps for 2 minutes. Green channel: 30fps for 1 minute. Blue channel: 15fps for 1 minute ).
Registax was used to stack approx 400 frames from each channel and sharpen with wavelet processing. Photoshop was used for the rest of the processing (levels, curves, channel combine).
The image on the left is RRGB, where the red channel is used as the luminance.

Thanks for looking.

Attached Images

20071021-mars.jpg (33.9 KB, 105 views)

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Mike
. mikesalway.com.au - Astronomy and Photography by Mike Salway
. IceInSpace - The Australian Amateur Astronomy Community
. My Bio | My Jupiter 2007 Gallery | My Image Gallery

The north polar region is very prominent this time round. Great work!

Kind regards
Matt

Mike, These are beautiful images. The clarity is great.

Now what is perhaps a silly question. What is the exposure time for the various images? Is it 1/30 sec for the 30 fps and 1/15 sec for the 15fps? I ask because my camera control on the ToUCam has two different settings: One for exposure and one for frame rate.

Thanks and clear skies,

--Andy

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Observatorio de la Ballona

Thanks Matt and Andy.

Andy - you're right. The 30fps is 1/30s exposure and 15fps is 1/15s exposure. The DMK has different settings as well, but generally the exposure is 1/frame rate, and then adjust the gain to get the brightness/histogram you want.

__________________
Mike
. mikesalway.com.au - Astronomy and Photography by Mike Salway
. IceInSpace - The Australian Amateur Astronomy Community
. My Bio | My Jupiter 2007 Gallery | My Image Gallery

Nice Job Mike!

Love the polar cap detail!

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Best Regards,
John Chumack
The Chumack Observatories
MPC 838 Dayton Research Station
MPC H66 Yellow Springs Research Station
www.galacticimages.com

Thanks John.

Here's another Mars from yesterday morning, at 3:30am.

Seeing was acceptable, but not quite as good as the day before. I had the 2x barlow in from capturing the Moon the night before, so the first run was with the 2x barlow, and then switched to the 5x powermate.

The face is slightly rotated from yesterday's image, but not by a lot.

Thanks for looking.

Attached Images

20071022-mars.jpg (30.5 KB, 27 views)

__________________
Mike
. mikesalway.com.au - Astronomy and Photography by Mike Salway
. IceInSpace - The Australian Amateur Astronomy Community
. My Bio | My Jupiter 2007 Gallery | My Image Gallery

Great captures of the red planet Mike! colors and polar hood, Very sharp as always Clear Skies my friend

Nice set of images Mike

Some good detail there even at just an 11" disc. Looks nice and natural too.

Mike

The seeing is certainly standing up to the 5x Powermate magnification.

Great images.

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Observatorio de la Ballona

nice images of mars, and blue colour is looking quite clearly below the red. Good camera focus by you.