My best Mars ever! 3rd Nov 2005

[iceman]

Hi guys.

Even though I'd just spent 8 hours in the car driving home from Victoria, a quick look at the jetstream convinced me it was worth losing sleep to image Mars - I hadn't imaged anything in over 2 weeks!

The seeing looked really bad to start with, but then I remembered I hadn't collimated in 2 weeks and it was way out. After collimating the image improved dramatically and before long I was capturing the best videos of Mars I've ever done.

I'm not sure if the dust storm is the bright area rising on the bottom right hand of the image - I haven't caught up with the state of the storms on Mars atm.

Here's the results of my processing, comments welcome.

[beren]

Oh Mama ....top stuff mate :drink:

[rumples riot]

Good image Mike, looks a little dark though to my eye. Detail is very good. You might consider perhaps doing an ME convolution in Astra image. I have found that this removes a lot of grain, but maintains the definition. Well done.

[davidpretorius]

great stuff mate!

the blue has some lovely detail

yes your best ever!!!

[h0ughy]

thats excellent, all that detail. no wonder your a happy man!

[Striker]

You should be happy Mike...great job

[xstream]

Well done Mike. Great stuff.

[asimov]

Great image Mike! Your best yet by far, well done son!

[Mick]

Wow Mike that is an image worth losing sleep for. :)

[bird]

Hey Mike those are great images, well done!

Bird

[Robert_T]

Excellent image crammed with detail! :) - don't know if there's any dust at bottom right, but the contrast change in the central albedo features is dust clearing over Margaritifer Sinus.

cheers,

Robert

[atalas]

Nice work Mike ! strange about what you suspect to be a dust storm, at the eyepiece I don't see a dust storm that white colour but I'm no expert on Mars Mike .

[robin]

You're the Mars man Mike! Great stuff.

[RB]

Hey fantastic work ICE,

Well worth staying up for, thanks for sharing not only your images but also your knowledge.
Lots of detail and as everyone said, it's your best yet.

Cheers mate.
:)

[xrekcor]

Excellent image Mike!! well done!!

Was looking at trying myself last night as conditions were looking great here too, but I fell asleep on my observing chair, woke up covered in dew at dawn with the neigbours chook swarking in my ear.

Anyway that is an image to be proud of!!!

regards,CS

[33South]

:prey2: we are not worthy.

Id be happy if I could just see Mars sometime soon.