Mars and Saturn 17Mar in useful seeing

[Shiraz]

At last - just when I was going to lock the scope in the shed and take up a sensible hobby, the wind blew up from the east, with a nice smooth flow off the sea. Even with a low grade 50kt jet at 200hPa, the seeing was OK for a change and I could see some albedo detail on Mars - better than hoping that deconvolution would dig something out after stacking. The increasing wind eventually became the enemy and destroyed the seeing before Saturn got to maximum altitude, but the red and green channels looked good lower down anyway (and blue was remarkably bad).
Typically stacked 1/4 of frames for Mars and up to 1/2 on Saturn, using AS!2.
Mars is showing some beautiful cloud over the Hellas impact basin and there is some interesting white ice? outside the dark collar around the polar cap. Saturn was imaged within 6 minutes, so it's slightly noisy, but there is still some hint of continuing structure in the region where the storm was.
That was good fun - thanks for looking. Regards Ray

[John K]

Fantastic images Ray, great colours and details!

[Shark Bait]

Both images are excellent. Thanks for posting.

[Paul Haese]

Nice Ray, I really like that Mars, pretty smooth stuff.

[Dennis]

Hi Ray

A lovely set of planetary images. Very nicely processed, they have that classical “out of the spaceship porthole” look about them.

Thanks for these gorgeous views!

Cheers

Dennis

[h0ughy]

Wow geez there have been some brilliant images lately, yours ARE absolutely wonderful

[Matt Wastell]

Hi Ray
These are tops! Mars is a classic!!!!

[Shiraz]

thank you John - appreciated

thanks Stu - glad to have something to post

thanks Paul - nice to have some better seeing wasn't it?

very generous comments Dennis - thanks

thanks Houghy. It was nice to get an image of Mars before it wandered off again.

thanks very much Matt.

regards Ray

[asimov]

Nice work Ray!

[Shiraz]

thanks Asi - been a long drought. regards ray

[John Hothersall]

That Saturn is a class result with the storm band showing well with strong edges.

John.

[Clayton]

Two beautiful classic shots Ray
Very nicely done :)

[Quark]

Congrats Ray on these images. Mars is a standout, a really nice result, reckon you have done exceedingly well with it.

You may have had a less than great B channel for Saturn but that certainly doesn't show and your final result looks just great.

Very Well Done.
Regards
Trevor

[icytailmark]

awesome images ray some great seeing

[iceman]

They're fantastic Ray, very well done!

[Shiraz]

thanks John - was nice to finally get some passable seeing

thanks Rob

Hi Trevor - thanks for the encouragement. I like the Mars view as well and was very pleased to finally see a bit of detail.

Thanks Mark - yes the seeing was pretty good at last

Thanks Mike for your generous comment

regards ray

[Lester]

It has all been said; wonderful views Ray. Top bit of imaging in those windy conditions.

All the best.

[Shiraz]

Hi Lester. thanks for your kind comments - yes, it sure was windy. Regards Ray

[lepton3]

Great results Ray. The Mars is fabulous - glad you got such a stunner this apparition. A very nice Saturn too, but there is possible even better to come!

-Ivan

[Shiraz]

Thanks Ivan - was getting a bit desperate after the seeing of the last month or so, so it was really pleasing to find some clear air before Mars receded too far. Regards ray