Mars Feb 2nd, 2014

[John K]

Hi guys,

Got to try out my new ASI120MM camera this morning. Most of Melbourne appeared to be fogged out this morning but the fog stayed south of the CBD and it was as good as it gets in Brunswick 5.5 kms North of the CBD where I had conditions which were close to as good as they get for a city of 3 million people.

The camera was cranked up to 111fps by keeping the exposure levels down to about 50% of the histogram (red channel), so despite being noisy, was able to get between 1000 to 2000 frames per channel - I ran out of time and was too excited to do another comparison with the Skynix and the IR channel due to the deteriorating seeing did not deliver any benefits.

Was able to get Firecapture working with my filter wheel which was nice.

Have some issues to address on the colour balance front in understanding how the camera performs with my filters so over the next week will address this and the attached image is very Green indeed!

Nice small cloud feature over Elysium visible.

Hope others got out there.

John K.

[Sebbie]

Hi John, great first run with your ASI! I was out this morning also but did not get to commence imaging until after 5am due to troubles with my notebook (again).

Your image clearly shows some activity in the north.. is it a dust storm front?

Rgds, Seb

[Maurice]

Looks good John.
I had a go a couple of hours earlier, but the seeing seemed only ordinary then. Very fast moving.
Congrats on the new camera.

Cheers
Maurice

[Paul Haese]

Nice John, don't forget you can image for 3-6 minutes per channel with Mars. It has similar rotation to Earth so blurring is nil for that time frame.

[Stefan Buda]

Well, this proves my suspicion that conditions tend to be worse in St Kilda, near the bay, than in the northern suburbs. Every time good conditions are predicted for the morning, I tend to be fogged out.

Good Mars, by the way.

Stefan

[John K]

Stefan, I have the feeling that the conditions will always be better near the water if you don't get fogged out - the concrete jungle I live in gives way too much heat - Mars will rise earlier and get higher so with your set up you will get amazing images as Mars gets higher earlier.