Mars from Melbourne Jan 10, 2014

[John K]

Well despite the wind and the unsteady seeing still had a go at Mars this morning.

The IR685 pass filter is looking promising, with the Green channel creating the most issues in the current conditions and the fact that there is so little Green light in Mars!

Very much looking forward to this apparition when Mars will nearly double from it's current size.

Always a difficult object to image but good fun.

Between 1,000 to 1,500 frames per channel stacked in AS2 and processed in AstraImage. Taken with a 12.5" f/5 scope from Brunswick.


Clear skies,

John K.

[Stefan Buda]

You seem to have captured a massive cloud band extending from Tharsis all the way across Solis Lacus, except the edges of Solis Lacus also look very bright in IR. I don't know if that is normal as I never imaged Mars in IR.
What type of cover glass you use on the camera when using the IR pass filter. Does the IR pass filter block all the spectrum towards the blue end?

[John K]

I don't think that the Skynix camera has anything but clear glass over the sensor. So for the IR 685 pass filter anything other then deep red including Blue should be blocked.

I'll shoot the image through to the Japan ALPO site and we can compare it with other images that people might post there.