Mars rotation animation 13/01/2008

[edwardsdj]

Hi all,

I thought my first Mars data was too poor to get any results from it. Did some wavelet processing in Registax and I thought I was just amplifying the noise. When I put together this animated sequence though, I realised the features I was seeing were in fact rotating with the planet.

This four frame animated GIF shows about 1 1/2 hours of rotation of the planet. You can see Syrtis Major slowly rotating into view.

First image is the animated GIF with all four frames. The remaining images are the four individual frames.

Celestron C8 with 2x Ultima Barlow (f/20 4000mm focal length)
SPC900NC webcam
Each image stack of approx 300 frames
Captured with K3CCDTools 1
Stacked and processed in Registax 4
GIF animation created with GIMP 2.4

Thanks for looking. Any comments, suggestions, critisism most welcome :)

I'm only just learning what can be pulled out of what initially looks like bad data :)

Have fun,
Doug

[jjjnettie]

Great stuff Doug.
When did the clouds clear long enough for you to take the images?

[edwardsdj]

Hi Jeanette,

Saturday night was pretty clear :)

Thanks heaps for your advice on the 2x magnification during processing. I didn't spend much time processing these. Was more keen to see the animation.

I should have mentioned that these images were taken through a red Baader filter.

Thanks heaps for looking :)

Have fun,
Doug

[Alchemy]

The animated gif is a good idea ...... hmmmm might use that for a little something myself:)

[gbeal]

They are indeed, infectious too, but man what a heap of work, both in the acquiring as well as in the processing. I have a few on my website, Mars included, done AGES ago.
Gary

[edwardsdj]

That's an awesome Mars animation on your website Gary :)

I didn't set out to make an animation when I captured the data. I'm very keen to have a more serious attempt at this before Mars shrinks away. I'm sure about four hours of data would be much more impressive.

[caleb]

ahh, the good ol' gimp:thumbsup: