Amazing amateur images of Mercury

[John K]

This is an amazing set of images of Mercury from the ALPO Japan website.

http://alpo-j.asahikawa-med.ac.jp/kk07/c070603z.htm

Has anyone heard of a Unibrain Fire-i 440 CCD Camera before? These guys captured more than 60,000 frames to get these shots which sounds amazing! and only with an instrument of around 18cm.

[matt]

Great images.

Thanks for the heads-up, John.

Wonder what brand of Mak-Cass they used? Probably an Intes.

[Dennis]

Thanks for the heads up John - those are spectacular images indeed.

I'm just watching Jupiter bounce up-and-down like a yo-yo on my notebook display right now, and the Mercury images cheered me up no end.

Cheers

Dennis

[seeker372011]

even in my eyepiece-not even trying imaging!

and indeed spectacular images

[Ric]

They are great images, that's for sure. It even looks like they captured some surface details as well.

[John K]

Its the camera I am interested in! To the guys that know their ccd chips, does this sound special in any way?

http://www.unibrain.com/Products/VisionImg/Fire_i_400_Industrial.htm

[matt]

There have been posts about the Unibrain firewire cameras on this site before.

[ballaratdragons]

Absolutely amazing images!!!!

Must be out of a book ;) :lol:

They are the best images I have EVER seen of Mercury!!!! I like the way the Phase changes in the 2 part animation.

Top points to the imager :thumbsup:

[h0ughy]

wow, now that is class imaging!!!! I am still gobsmaked bythe images you guys produce of Jupiter, but that is in a class all its own!

[Ingo]

Mercury looks boring. But great imaging nonetheless! :thumbsup:

[bird]

This is the same ccd as used in the ToUCam, the icx089bq colour ccd.

I used a monochrome version of that camera for a year or so, the fire-i "board" camera, which comes with no box, just the innards that you have to put into a case. It used the monochrome icx089bl ccd.

If this guy had used the monochrome camera then he would have got even better results.

the fire-i cameras are "cheap and cheerful", they're good starter cameras, and not too expensive. However the model I used had some problems with image quality and speed, all these are solved by purchasing more expensive cameras from places like TheImagingSource or PGR.

cheers, Bird

[mickoking]

Bloody amazing stuff :thumbsup: