ToUcam Mars

[matt]

Well...the conditions weren't favourable but seeing Mike's great images inspired me to have a go anyway.

Here's one from early this morning (Oct 23) around 2.30am.

Mars was around the 30 degree mark.

This is the area around 320-330 degrees longitude. The major feature Syrtis Major is just coming into view. Sinus Sabaeus is also clearly in view, as is the Hellas basin.

There's also a fair amount of cloud hovering around the NPH. (North is up, BTW).

Thanks for looking.

[DJVege]

Great image, Matt. What scope did you use? Barlow?

[matt]

Hi DJ...and thanks.

I used a Celestron 9.25 SCT with Televue 3x barlow.

Here's the same image enlarged 1.5x (B-Spline resample in Registax) to show the cloud formation at the pole.

Cheers.

[Alchemy]

the mars season has begun . good capture, with it so low in the sky you have a good amount of detail there.

[venus]

really good pic there

[jjjnettie]

That's really good!
Thanks for posting.

[sheeny]

Good one Matt! I'm impressed with the detail you've got. I should get my scope out and have a go... but I've got too many excuses:lol:... clouds actually tonight, but with preparing the house for sale, preparing to go to Canada on Saturday, and cramming in extra work... what can I say... my priorities are in a mess at the moment!:lol::P

Al.

[Dennis]

Hey Matt

You've turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse - I was out around the same time and all I managed was the sow’s ear! It was horrible – wobbling like a jelly. I am astonished that you were able to get such a good image given the conditions - well done.

Cheers

Dennis

[matt]

Thanks everyone.

Dennis - you're right. The seeing was not good. Mars was doing the big wobble dance on my screen too.

I ended up using only about 130 frames out of 1000 and to be honest I really should have only used about 50 or 60, but I needed the extra frames to stack out some of the grain.

The drop-off in quality in Registax was pretty severe.

I took a few AVIs with the DMK...but they weren't any better. You really need better seeing for the DMK to shows its worth.

Cheers

[davidpretorius]

very nice matt