Feb10th-Mars and Saturn in good seeing

[John Hothersall]

SPX350 F35.9, PGRFlea3, Astrodon filters.

Alpha centauri twinkiled oh so slightly and the diff rings on my star collimation were round and still. Tried a shorter Fl of 12.6meters instead of 19meters and Mars looked good with steady air but scudding fluffy slow cloud moving through for an hour. No technical problems for once, but moving onto Saturn the seeing fell in quality to above avg maybe. A decent night for once.

Mars GIF came out a bit wobbly, sorry.
Mars images were 1500/1542/1619hrs UT.
Saturn images were 1637/1658/1718hrs UT.

Thanks, John.

[John Hothersall]

Saturn best IR taken at 1643hrs UT, not much detail on IR742nm most detail was in the red.

Thanks, John.

[von Tom]

Fantastic images John, truly! I am in the middle of processing my images from the morning of the 10th but I don't think I'll bother ;)

Tom

[Star Catcher]

Superb work John!

Ted

[pvelez]

Man - they are impressive. Thats a hell of a lot of FL there.

Thanks for sharing

Pete

[Clayton]

Beautiful John :)

[Irish stargazer]

Wonderful images John. Glad to see some clear skies coming through finally:)

[mswhin63]

Great imaging John

[lepton3]

Very impressive images John, especially the Mars. Love the detail in the polar cap.

-Ivan

[Quark]

Impressive result with Mars and Saturn John, certainly a good night.

Well done.
Regards
Trevor

[gregbradley]

Brilliant John.

Love em.

Greg.

[FranckiM06]

:jawdrop: Wow, it is so splendid result. I like very much your result on Mars and Saturn. Congratulation John.:thumbsup:
Franck

[Shiraz]

very impressive detail John - excellent images. Regards Ray

[rogerg]

Absolutely stunning detail. So much better than what I achieved in the 2003 opposition where it was over 20" in size! The detail in your pictures is just incredible.

Questions if you don't mind... To get that FL on your scope are you working with a 2.5x and 5x stacked? How fast is the shutter speed at that long focal length?

Roger.

[Derek Klepp]

All great pics John but I like the 2nd Mars shot the best.

[John Hothersall]

Thanks everyone.

Roger, Mars and Saturn imaged at 12,500mm according to Firecapture, I used the 5xPowermate at about 95-100mm extension from PM top to sensor giving 7.9x which is the maximum power.

I use a 350mm Newtonian so Mars is very bright with RGB gain at 2000/3300,2600/3300,3200/3300. FPS 55,53,53. (100sec per channel)

Saturn I use full gain 3300. RGB FPS 18,12,8. (80sec per channel probably too long 60 sec is better).

Regards, John.

[iceman]

Lovely work John, great results.

[strongmanmike]

Fantastic John, looks to be a real thin Encke division visible there too :eyepop: rather than just the ususal broader feature that many think is the Encke.

The Mars shots are incredible too.

Top job

Mike

[Matt Wastell]

Hi John
An impressive collection. Thanks for providing the great views!

[Paul Haese]

Superb work John. Mars looking very planet like with three dimensionals orbiter characteristics. The processing looks lovely and at that frame rate you could gather more frames in 2 minute avi's per channel without incurring any rotational blur.

[SkyViking]

Wow, again a fantastic set of images. The processing is just superb with lots of details everywhere. These images are a joy to look at, John. Thanks for the view.

[Satchmo]

The Mars images look over sharpened to me. It would be great to see you and Quark post single raw images so that some comparison can be made of the seeing conditions at your relative observing sites.

[bird]

Fabulous images John, congrats!

cheers, Bird

[John Hothersall]

Thanks Bird, Mark, Rolf, Paul, Matt, Mike and others. Should really show a few seconds of video with Flickr of the red channel. Here are stills anyway following Mark's suggestion.

Best Saturn Red out of 1400 frames over 80secs
Best Saturn IR742nm out of 1200 frames over 150secs

Best Mars out of 4500 frames over 120secs
Average Mars out of above 4500 frames.

John.

[Frewi808]

Wonderful Set John !!!!!!
Freddy