Mars and Saturn in better seeing Jan27UT

[Shiraz]

Hi. seeing was really bad the evening before, but had smoothed out quite well by 3am and improved as the morning progressed - transparency was pretty ordinary, but fairly consistent.
Mars was fairly well resolved, showing clouds all over the place (and possibly a dust storm?) and the dreaded bright edge ringing was not a major problem.
Saturn was quite detailed and I could even occasionally see much of Cassini in the blue band feed!! Have also included a heavily enhanced and scaled version of Saturn to show that, in addition to the bluish ribbon, there looks to be some storm residue structure in the darker zone nearer the equator.
Thanks for looking. Regards Ray

[lepton3]

Ray, those are some very nice images.

Impressed with the image scale you get on Mars. Is that scaled up?

I really like the heavily enhanced Saturn, but then again being colour blind I can't tell whether the colour balance is unnatural looking, I just like the increased contrast and detail.

-Ivan

[DavidU]

Love your work Ray.:thumbsup:

[Phoenix]

Fantastic images Ray of both Saturn and Mars. Am I mistaken or can you even see a slight hint of the Encke gap in both saturn images. Well done - nice color also.

Cheers Steve

[Clayton]

Very nice Ray :thumbsup::thumbsup:
Lovely detail and colours :)

[Shiraz]

Hi Ivan. thanks. I used f31.7 for this Mars image (up from a normal f28.7). the resulting image was scaled 1.2x to optimise the presentation of features (to my eyes). re colour, I also have some colour impairment (cannot readily see casts) and have now resorted to using the auto balance (white) function in IRIS to drive the B ring on Saturn to a neutral grey and the icecap on Mars to white (assuming no saturation). For an object with no true neutral zones, such as jupiter, I have recently used Nebulosity to autobalance - more consistent than I am.

thanks Dave - very kind comment

thanks Steve - yeah, reckon I can just claim Encke in this image (finally...) - thanks for pointing it out

thanks Rob

Regards Ray

[Lester]

Very nice detailed images Ray, thanks for the views.

[Quark]

A very nice result Ray a top allround effort. It looks like we are in for a very enjoyable Saturn season.

Cheers
Trevor

[Kevnool]

Great images Ray.
Cheers

[Shiraz]

Hi Lester - thanks

The atmosphere sure has been more stable lately Trevor - next few months might be good

thanks Kev.

regards Ray

[Troy]

Great shot Ray. :)

[strongmanmike]

Gee, they're good Ray :thumbsup:

I love Mars when it is at this point approaching opposition and still in phase, always looks like a distant world plus the detail here with all those clouds makes it look like a distant inhabited world too.

Mike

[Shiraz]

thanks Troy.

thanks Mike. agree the clouds look interesting - it is staggering to me that we can buy gear that will image weather on another planet.

regards Ray