Took these Saturday night under clear light polluted skies with a moderate Jetstream playing with the seeing, so they lost the detail I can usually capture under better conditions. SkippySky was right again but I decided to set up in hope that conditions were going to be better.
Due to the average seeing, it was hard to establish whether or not the Mars dust storm is starting to clear, I think I can just see some hint of detail coming through so we wait in hope.
I put the 8 inch Newtonian through it's paces because after giving up on the planetary, I swapped the unmodded 550d over to the modded 550d and got this 10min integration exposure of M20 just to finish off the night. I took 40 x 40 second subs but had to ditch 25 of them due to bad tracking errors! I think I may have had the EQ5 mount weighted to the west which caused the problem, added to that the RA motor seems to be jamming a bit.
Exposure details: Planetary, 8 inch f5 Newt with 12.5mm eyepiece + 2.5x Powermate, Canon unmodded 550d, Movie Crop mode.
M20, 8 inch f5 Newt at prime focus, modded Canon 550d with UVIR cut filter, 15 x 40 seconds 800 iso.
Nice captures on the gas giants, plenty of detail still coming through despite the flukey atmosphere. Good work. Mars is just being a party pooper.
The Trifid is nice. I like the subtle contrast you get from your Esprit in the background, stars look great and plenty of nebulosity showing through even with the modest data collected.
Nice collection of images Mick. Mars looks great considering that there's not much showing with the storms that are going on. Whether it's the equipment, the seeing, or the timings. There's always a hurdle to get over and you've managed to get over a few here. Well done.
Thanks for your compliments guys, sometimes it's difficult to muster up the motivation to get out there and give it a go. This time of year the thought of leaving a nice warm house to venture out into the cold is a bit off putting but I always find once you start imaging you manage to overcome the discomfort. You never know when that short period of steady seeing is going to occur.
