Mars last night

[Mickoid (Michael)]

I wasn't going to do any planetary photography last night because the forecast indicated a cloudy night but when I went out to bring some clothes in off the line, the cloud looked like it was clearing. Couldn't resist grabbing the EQ5 mount and the 8 inch Newt to set up a quick grab of Mars. I used a Sony RX100M3 and tried an afocal shot with a 3mm eyepiece then finished off with my old Canon 550d with a 5x Powermate. Seeing was reasonable.

[Tulloch (Andrew)]

Interesting approaches to getting those images, nice results from the two different methods.

[multiweb (Marc)]

I like the 2nd Canon shot. Really nice details.

[rustigsmed (Russell)]

really nice work there Mick especially with an 8" and dslr (although the 550d does a good job in video crop mode from memory). nice work.

cheers

russ

[Mickoid (Michael)]

Originally Posted by Tulloch

Interesting approaches to getting those images, nice results from the two different methods.

Thanks Andrew, I've done plenty of planetary photography with the DSLR but very little afocal photography. The problem with the Sony RX100 is it only has a small optical zoom so my image scale was a little too small to capture finer surface details.

Originally Posted by multiweb

I like the 2nd Canon shot. Really nice details.

Thanks Marc, movie crop mode on these cameras hold up pretty well against dedicated ccd planetary cameras.

Originally Posted by rustigsmed

really nice work there Mick especially with an 8" and dslr (although the 550d does a good job in video crop mode from memory). nice work.

cheers

russ

Thanks Russ, video crop mode is a real handy feature to have, I'm not sure why it didn't feature on more Canon models. The ability to record at 1:1 pixel ratio straight to the camera's SD card without the need of a computer is a real advantage. The 8 inch Newt is a great all round performer.