Is Mars, is good! 01/08/2005

[iceman]

Hi guys.

Mr Gary Beal once noted that the length of my introduction is an insight into how happy I am with the image.. he's mostly right, I guess.. and I'm pretty pleased with this image so keep reading :)

Got up in the cold this morning to image Mars again, the jetstream didn't look like it would be too bad. When I first set up, through the eyepiece Mars was a wobbling bowl of jelly so I wasn't confident.. I continued anyway..

I ensured the EQ platform was much better aligned this time, and I was able to take 11 x 180s avi's of Mars.. was nice to just sit back and watch it take frames without having to touch it in-between! :)

The first few avi's were a write-off as the seeing was still horrible, but after 5-10 minutes it cleared up a bit and I got some useful video. It was still only what I'd rate 5.5/10, but the resulting images are much better than my first attempt on Friday morning. So i'm happy, i've gone forward not backward :)

The simulation image is from "Mars Previewer II".

The images are a stack of approx 300-500 frames, out of 1800 per video.

Comments welcome.

[asimov]

Very nice Mike! Well done! The 1st 2 are my fav's. Pretty amazing, considering one can't see detail like this unless the scope is of fairly big aperture, & the conditions JUSST right visually speaking. :thumbsup:

[[1ponders]]

Ahhh mate, they are crankin' stuff. Excellent!! Well done. :thumbsup: No wonder you're pleased. :clap::clap::clap:

[acropolite]

Fantastic Pics Mike; I can't believe you're getting those sort of results with a Toucam and dob. Well done....:D

[ving]

fantasic work mike!
stoked you must be!
something for dave p. to aim for :P

[rumples riot]

Good work Mike, the planet is getting large and I am thinking that at f25 on my lX200 it should be very large by now.

Good definition in the image and not much grain. Keep em coming. Going to give Venus a go tonight and in the next week will have ago at Mars, depending on weather.

Good stuff Mike. Impressive.

[atalas]

Dido Mike ! they look great , and I must add very close to what you can see at the eyepiece at opposition on a good night.

Louie :eyepop: :2thumbs:

[gbeal]

Hey, nice ICE, but how did I get involved in this??
I have been too lazy to even attempt what you have, congratulations.

[Mick]

very nice Ice, you have captured some amazing detail. :)

[iceman]

Thanks for the nice comments, i'm pleased with the results given only my 2nd attempt at a Mars capture this year. Looking forward to it growing bigger!

For sure, i'd love that image scale, but I need a 5x powermate to reach the same focal length. Time to start saving for one.

[beren]

Mike thats wonderful work well done , i persisted for a couple of hours sat night and i got zip with my efforts apart from sighting the v shaped markings on the surface but couldnt get anything recorded. Looking forward to what your going to produce in the following months

[Robby]

Nice work Mike. It's coming round nicely...

[Squiz]

Great photos ice, can't believe you get so much detail out of an f5 dob. I have an f4.6 10" dob which just seems to be too fast for anything like that, even with a barlow. Plus the fact that i unfortunately suffer from a rather light polluted area. I can only see stars to roughly mag 4.5. Keep up the great work as It gives me the opportunity to see things that i cannot see from where i am.