Mars from this morning, 8th Sep

[iceman]

Hello father.

It's been 12 days since my last imaging session.

I'd been having imaging withdrawals, so planned to get up early to do some imaging - jetstream or no jetstream. Turns out, no jetstream! :) Glad about that, because it was 3am!!

The seeing was on the good side, about 7/10. I was hoping the avi's would produce my best Mars image so far, and it came close, however I think the shots I took on the 25th August (http://www.iceinspace.com.au/forum/showthread.php?t=3655&highlight=mars) were marginally better as the seeing was also a tad better.

I experimented with the processing on these, trying lots different things - the large one at the top is 1.9x resampled in registax. The other large one is because I stacked my 2x and 2.4x barlows together, to give a FL of 6000mm. The seeing was just up to it, but not quite as some nasty artifacts were introduced during processing as you can see. Also it appears stacking these 2 fairly poor quality barlows scatters the light a lot, it required a huge RGB shift in registax to align the red and blue channels. I'm guessing that a 5x powermate wouldn't have this problem.

I'm fairly happy with these, Mars is getting bigger and that's a good thing! However it only gets to 40-45deg in the north, which is a bad thing!

These shots taken with the 10" dob on the EQ platform, and the ToUcam @ 5fps and some at 10fps as the seeing deteriorated towards the end of the session.

Comments welcome.

[ving]

mars is almost out at a resonable time now... wont be long till i start viewing it :)
great shots mike, loads of detail. you should do a side by side with these and your fist one :P it'd be interesting.

my knowledge on imaging is very limited but why does it have the bright edging to it? i've seen a product called a fringe killer, is that something to do with the bright edge to to planet in your image or hair dressing? :confuse3:

[RB]

Hey ICEMAN,
WOW and AWESOME.
They are Excellent mate and a killer presentation style :thumbsup:

I wish mine would be half as good, I'd be happy.
Thanks also for the details on settings.


Andrew

Gotta plough, gotta plough,
no work done since I found IIS:ashamed:

[Striker]

Fantastic work Mike....what are you hidding Mike...come on give us your secret....lol

[asimov]

Geez...I give up. Nice shots Mike!

[Chrissyo]

Holy dooly! Thats awesome. I have the same scope as you, and for me, mars is still a little red blob. :P That base mod must rock! :D

[acropolite]

Fantastic and truly inspiring shots Mike, doubley so considering the equipment they were captured with...:D

[davidpretorius]

the planet master, i assume mike that you hung around and got saturn as well!!!!

pictures please.


AND STOP MUCKING AROUND, GET THE GODDAM 5X OR 6X or 10X barlow, you deserve it, me and asimov and striker will explain to your wife the $1000 odd you require is for the good of the nation (iis nation).



disclaimer: we will explain to said wife from our home states in a whisper with our heads in our pillows. She might not hear it, but at least we were backing you up!!!

[iceman]

Thanks for the comments guys, I'm quite happy with the shots also.

Makes it worthwhile getting up at 3am!

DP, i'm tossing up between spending my next purchase on a 5x powermate or a premium planetary EP.

[videoguy]

Excellent work Mike - Rocket boy took the words right out of my mouth!

[iceman]

Thanks Steve!

Rocket boy took these words out of my mouth :)

[Dennis]

Those are wonderful Mars images Mike - you've done a great job in capturing and processing them to such a high standard - well done!

Cheers

Dennis