Hi All,
After a bit of a break I had a bit of luck with clouds parting in the middle of the night on a night after work... I couldn't let this opportunity slip me by, since we had nothing but cloud here for weeks... WEEKS!!!
The following night it was clear at midnightish also so again I setup the gear and imaged some more.
Now its back to mostly cloud covered.
I looked through the eyepiece and the sky was very still, not the clearest I've ever experienced but up there. Mars showed a slight amount of markings and Saturn was a awesome view, bands visible and detail in the rings like the inner looked darker then the outer rings, along with the Cassini division, shadow on both the globe and on the rings behind the planet.
Also I had a good play with the new Neodymium and Contrast booster filters. Using them both stacked together really did improve the view through the eyepiece... noticeably more then using them one at a time.
I decided to lug out the laptop and the CCD and try to image the planets since the atmosphere was steady.
Here are my latest attempts at Mars and Saturn. I used the Neodymium filter as the IR cut filter for all channels, I found that it seems to bring out a bit more detail then just using the IR-cut filter.
All imaged with the IS-DMK618. In both images Luma was created from the best 25% of 5000 frames and best 50% for Red 2000 frames, Green 1000 frames and Blue 500 frame captures.
I've also included a comparison of Mars from the Mars Globe App set to the same time I imaged Mars.
Thanks for looking & clear skies,
Mariusz