Mars 18th May, an animation and (nearly) some excitement

[andyc]

So it was another good night's seeing on the 18th, allowing a fine view towards Acidalia Planitia, the 200mm scope doing well once again.

One interesting thing was the appearance of a small white cloud on the northeastern limb, which in several stacks appeared to be above the limb! Excitement! Memories of an article or two about very high clouds a few years ago (http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/transient-martian-phenomena-022420155/) (and the Nature paper (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v518/n7540/full/nature14162.html)). But then reality... and a look at John Hothersall's fabulous images (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=145835) from the previous night, with the bright clouds not off the limb at all. Oh well, and thanks John :lol: Reality bites, I'm fairly sure it's merely a processing artefact...

I'm putting together an animation of my better images from the apparition, and I've about reached one rotation's worth of images now, from April 24th to May 18th.

[John Hothersall]

That's a good set of images with a few more weeks to go you will get quite a collection.

WinJupos allows you to set up a map projection of all your images to create a rotation. If you have all sides of the planet to a decent resolution using Analysis tab-Map computation to create the projection. You can put the cropped projection into Tools-Ephemerides using graphics and options and save a full rotation of your images.

John.

[Dennis]

Very nice Andy, another excellent set of images.:thumbsup:

Cheers

Dennis

[Camelopardalis]

Good work Andy :thumbsup:

[andyc]

Ken, the occulting bar would be great for projects like this. Excuse my naivete, but where would you fit the bar - I'm guessing inside the back of the eyepiece for visual, in front of the chip somewhere for photographic?

[astronobob]

Great capturing and processing Andy, gotta be happy with them, Mars is performing well this season and details are there for us, just need to be prepared and have the skills, Like you.
I cant wait to have another go but weather is not good at the moment here , maybe next week !
Must look into winjupos, sounds awesome - did you use winjupos for your animation or other program system ?
Cheers !

Looking forward to more of your images !

[andyc]

Thanks everyone!
John, that's all good advice. I've had a play with Winjupos (Jupiter images from earlier in the year), and output my files so they are readable by the program - but to date haven't quite had the time to sit and really get to grips with it. I should have a little time in the next couple of weeks, as it looks to be really powerful.

Bob, they were just put together at a consistent resolution in PS2's animation pane, where you can make animated gifs.

[andyc]

Thanks everyone!
John, that's all good advice. I've had a play with Winjupos (Jupiter images from earlier in the year), and output my files so they are readable by the program - but to date haven't quite had the time to sit and really get to grips with it. I should have a little time in the next couple of weeks, as it looks to be really powerful.

Bob, they were just put together at a consistent resolution in PS2's animation pane, where you can make animated gifs.