Mars from Clayton Bay (my opening account)

[Paul Haese]

Several years ago now I bought a property at Clayton Bay in South Australia. Over the course of several years holidays I had noted how good the seeing was at that location. I had viewed Mars during the 2005 apparition there and the was very impressed with the steady skies. Added to this, the town is a dark sky township. It was a bonus either way. So I bought a house there and set up an observatory on the property. The dark skies have pretty much distracted me from using the site for my original intention (aside from a couple of planetary images that I have done over the Christmas breaks for the last couple of years) until now. This summer season our home in the Adelaide hills has been beset by gully winds which have destroyed seeing on every clear night. Two weeks ago I had decided after seeing so many great Mars images that it was time for me to put the C14 down at Clayton and try my luck.

I have had the site tested with the societie's DIMM and it has come up on average of 0.7 arc seconds. Only problem is that the site does sometimes suffer from cloud or fog formation with it being so close to the ocean, thus why I had not generally tried more planetary imaging. It is great for DSO imaging but frustrating for planetary work.

Seeing in the last week has been fairly typical (good solid seeing) but clouds on three occassions have prevented me from obtaining a nice image or even setting up. Last night was almost the same but I picked up some solid data just as Mars hit the meridian. I did not bother with Saturn, but the views of it through the eyepiece were magnificient to say the least. I will get that later this week. Saturn being higher in the sky than Mars presented detail in the bands around the planet and the Cassini division was a solid thin black line. Perhaps I should have imaged Saturn but knowing that the wind shear will improve this week means that I will get another opportunity.

Click here for site image (http://paulhaese.net/Mars21February2012.html) and to see other Mars images. Click on the picture to take you out to the Mars gallery. I have included the image here for those who prefer to view the image here.

My best Mars to date, some minor flaws but overall I am pretty happy to have a run on the board for this apparition.

[Quark]

Very nice result Paul, very crisp and well defined detail, the NPC is particularly impressive. Look forward to more planetary images from Clayton.

Regards
Trevor

[swannies1983]

Top effort Paul. Love the detail. Excuse my ignorance, but why the "double" image (left hand side). Is this an alignment issue? :shrug:

As you know, I am also getting a tad frustrated with these gully winds. Every clear night has been spoilt by them. Put clouds up in the sky and these winds go away.

What's the sky like there compared to Victor? I was down at Victor a few weeks ago but the full moon spoilt the views.

[Paul Haese]

Yes the NPC looked quite interesting and different from the previous apparition. Another month and it will most likely be just a small white spot with little if any detail.




Dan this is a processing artifact. I will need to reprocess this side of the planet and remove the edge artifact as it is called. The estimator is the likely cause for this artifact. I will need to do two processes one for the edge and one for the surface detail and then do a layer mask to combine them.

Skies at Clayton are superior by a very large maring to Victor Harbor. The skies are very dark at around 21.5-21.6 on an SQM. There is some light spill from Adelaide (around one and bit fists up from the horizon) and some lighten in the sky from Goolwa. Other than that my DSO imaging results (see my website) pretty much show what the skies are like. 5 street lights in the whole township that are turned on and the rest have been disconnected (nearly 30 lights). Nice bylaw made by an understanding council.

Seeing as I said is superb most of the time, I have only ever seen one night where the seeing would have been poor. All other times the seeing has been around 6 and up.

[swannies1983]

Thanks for clearing that up Paul. Sound like a great place to image. If only all councils were that understanding. I have seen a number of your pics and I'm quite impressed.

A bit off topic (apologies). I have a friend up at Strath who's now interested in getting a telescope. He says the skies are really dark down there. You ever looked at the sky conditions there?

[Paul Haese]

Yes a friend of mine lives near there and I have viewed from his propety several times. There is a bit of light pollution (Strath is being invaded by light lovers) present but still reasonable for darkness. Seeing is ok but not fantastic. In any event better than Adelaide.

[bartman]

Mmmmm, have you been using the Hubble scope again Paul????:P
Thats an awesome pic!
Love it! well shot !
Cheers
Bartman

[Lester]

Very nice detailed image Paul. Good to see you getting some. All the best.

[lepton3]

Nice one Paul, with plenty of fine detail allowing us to see the interesting developments in the North Polar Cap.

I was out trying at about the same time, but the seeing was unusable from suburban Adelaide.

-Ivan

[asimov]

Good to finally see your opening image on Mars this apparition. Can't wait to see a Saturn. It's so lovely & high that it's easy enough to get a full CD in average seeing.

[Paul Haese]

If only Bart if only. Thanks for the comment.

Thanks Lester



Ivan try to get away from the heat plume of the city if you can. Seeing will generally be better anywhere away from the city. Rare nights it will be good, but this time of year during the transition of summer to winter makes it near impossible.



Yeah draggin my heals bud, trouble is that I have diversified so much with all aspects of astro imaging there never seems enough time to do everything as thoroughly as I want. Part of the sacrifice though.

Funny how 5 or 6 years ago we would all be stoked with the CD nearly all the way around. Now if we don't have the Enke either a trace of it or all of it we consider the image a little lesser in our own minds. Such are the advances that have been made. Both in hardware and processing abilities. I will try for another image of Saturn to better my last years award winner. Seeing will be the deciding factor though. ;)

[John Hothersall]

Thats a very good result but beset by the ringing which seems to affect everyone in all but the best seeing. Elysium cloud and icecap detail developed well in this image.

John.

[Clayton]

Lovely detail Paul :thumbsup:
Nice to see you make a start with Mars:)

[Paul Haese]

Thanks John, now sorted the ring. Two different processes and some selective masking has taken care of the issue.

Thanks Rob

[spacezebra]

Awesome Paul!

Cheers Petra d.

[Rigel003]

Congratulations on getting one. You're right about the Adelaide weather. Lots of good detail and the limb treatment has helped that double image sensation.

[iceman]

Nice work Paul, the reprocess has fixed up the ringing nicely.

[strongmanmike]

Nice job Paul

Mike

[Shiraz]

Top image Paul - the Clayton site delivered the goods. Regards Ray

[StephenM]

That's a cracker Paul! Amazing detail.

Cheers,
Stephen

[astronobob]

Crykeeze Paul, that is such 1000 % better than recent yrs ! Unreal ! !

[Exfso]

That it is a pearler of a shot, reckon it is the best I have seen from an Amateur. Looks almost 3D.:eyepop:

[Matt Wastell]

Hello Paul - super stuff - so much to see - thanks for sharing!