My very first planet - Mars

[taxman]

I dodged the clouds tonight for three 1 minute AVIs shot through my Nexstar 6SE.

I have never tried this before and I think I had the gain a little high because when a small cloud came over, I saw the detail pop right out. So I dropped the gain and took the best 100 frames to get this.

There was a big blue halo, particularly pronounced on the bottom edge. Getting rid of it (I have no idea what I am doing - just played with sliders) made it all look a little green, so I would appreciate any comments on what that could have been and how to avoid the blue halo in future.

[Liz]

Well done for a first effort Matt :thumbsup:
Am sure the guys/jjj will give you some more tips :)

[Clayton]

Not too bad for a first try. It's always hard dodging cloud.
Try for longer avi's to allow more good frames in each capture, and also minimise the negative effects of high gain.
I think the blue is Atmospheric Refraction(A/R) (it is at least in the right spot) but it could be other things. There are ways to get around A/R but the simplest way is to wait till the target is high in the sky (which Mars is not this time around) but around 30 degrees and above elevation it is minimal IMHO.

[taxman]

Amazing the difference you can get when there are no clouds to race. Played with the shutter speeds and gamma to get the attached.

Much happier with this one...

[Clayton]

Now that's a Mars image.:eyepop:Looking Good:thumbsup:

[iceman]

Excellent work! That second one is really good. Well done.

[Quark]

A most creditable result Matt.

There is no substitute for experience so now that your on the right track get out as often as you can and maybe have a go at Saturn as well.

Matt, its a good idea to make up a spread sheet and print it out, to record all of your capture settings for each avi, even for the ones that are really crappy.

This way you will gain an understanding of the effects that different settings have on the final result and when you come up with something that works you have it documented for the following apparition.

That said what works this time will probably have to be fine tuned as the apparent diameter and thus intrinsic brightness of the target object varies, but at least you will have ball park settings recorded as a hard copy.

Regards
Trevor

[taxman]

Thanks for the encouragement - it really does the motivation wonders to get these sorts of comments :thanx:.

It really is amazing what a $70 webcam can produce (of course, I make no mention of the $2000 goto I used, nor the the motorised focuser, IR filter and bahtinov mask I plan to get :lol:).

Now I need to break my genetic programming and get up early one day this week to see how I go with Saturn...