Mars, IR,RGB+IR animation+Saturn morning Jan 29th

[Quark]

Hi All,

Well, what a day yesterday, wide spread storms with very strong wind, hail and dust passing through our region. Mind you, in Broken Hill we got the wind and dust with a few sprinkles but fortunately missed out on the hail.

Checked the WZ animated sat images and it looked like the cloud would clear through the early evening and the jet stream on the GFS site looked promising for after midnight.

Imaged from 10:41 pm CSST through to 2:38 am CSST. The seeing didn't look to good early on at about 4/10 but it steadily improved and by 1 am CSST was nice at 5 to 6/10.

Over the session I captures 8 IR 807+nm avi's and 4 RGB sets of avi's. The first RGB was pretty crook but things improved and I think I have my best RGB's for this apparition.

Before I packed up I captured 2 sets of RGB avi's of Saturn which came up not to bad. This session ended up providing some very hi res images but I am still hanging out for some really good seeing to see what my 16" can do with Mars.

Have also included an animation of my 8 IR images which cover 3hrs 19mins of Mars rotation. The images clearly demonstrate how the seeing improved through the night.

These images have some very nice detail in them which I have not labeled, however any one interested in identifying the features should refer to my previous posts over the last month or so in which I have labeled much of the detail that is in the images from this session

Thanks for Looking,

Regards
Trevor

[Kevnool]

Flicking through them Trev they look Great.
In the animation it looking better and better as the animation was running,seeing must of been better at the end of your run.
Cheers Kev.

[Buddman]

Nice, no - impressive. Considering the viewing I think that they are great images. Well done.

Love your work.

Adam

[kinetic]

Great stuff Trev,
I've gotta dust off the camera and try and get some AVIs this
week. I missed the 2007 apparition because it was so far north.
I miss the winter oppositions! :)

Great to see your Saturn technique is still down pat. Very nice
colours and resolution there.
Dumb question: have you tried the IR filter on Saturn?

Mum and Dad sent some pics of the dust storm just out of Quondong
and also some welcome water at the main weir.
Sorry for the off topic pics but I thought you and Kev would enjoy seeing
them.:thumbsup:

Steve

[Quark]

Thanks Kev, the seeing was pretty crook to start with, about 4/10, but steadily improved to about 6/10 by the end.



Thank very much Adam for your most generous comments.



Thanks Steve, I thought Saturn came up ok but with a little better seeing it would really pop.

The IR filter is a bit of a disappointment with Saturn, it works well with Jupiter, is great for Mars but Saturn is just not bright enough to use it.

With max gain and max exposure with the IR on Saturn, I can barely detect an image at all. I did have high hopes that the IR filter would be very useful in detecting the electrical storms I image on Saturn. Logic would suggest that, even as the level of lightning drops, that there would be hot areas that would be bright in IR.

Oh well, it looks like just the R channel is still the go for the smaller storms while the larger ones will still show up in RGB.

Thanks for attaching the images of the storm and the main weir. Probably not many city people would ever get to see what a rolling red dust storm looks like and strewth, haven't we had a few over the last year or so.

All of the South Australians on IIS would be happy to see the water heading their way from the main weir at Menindee.

[Clayton]

Got some real nice ones there Trevor.

[alphajuno]

Those are great Trevor, thanks. I haven't even stayed up late enough to see Saturn with my eyes yet :).

[Quark]

Thanks very much Clayton, I think these are close to my best for this apparition.



Thanks Dave,
I generally start imaging Mars at about 11 pm CSST though to about 3 am CSST by which time Saturn is really nicely placed, much higher than Mars ever gets for me, at least for this apparition. I can never pack up without capturing a few avi's of Saturn.

[Lester]

Beautiful images Trevor. Captured my first image of Mars last night, and after looking at yours, I am speachless.

Thanks for the views Trevor and all the best.

[Quark]

Thank you Lester for your most generous comment, I have been getting a lot of practice with Mars.