[Dave882 (David)]

Wanted to have another go at Mercury this week as it’s orbiting furthest from the sun and positioned as best it’ll get for afternoon viewing. Even though seeing conditions were not fantastic, it was finally a clearish afternoon on Wednesday.

I read that IR might reveal some more detail so armed with my new Optolong IR685 filter took a few vids.

The result showed quite a bit of extra contrast for IR vs slightly better resolution with the rgb. Even though I set up much earlier than last time I was frustrated by a single high cloud in the wrong spot (that I swear doubled back at least twice) so ended up closer to the horizon than I wanted.

Even so I reckon it’s a better result from previous attempts. Compared with Winjupos ephemerides i reckon that I’ve got a lighter region that coincides with 347.5W 33.9S which after a bit of research showed to be the Debussy Crater - a rayed impact crater. (Cmon just let me have it guys!!) And another region in northern hemisphere that I haven’t identified.

I tried combining the layers in Gimp but not that effective. When I can work on it a bit more I’ll post an image.

Might have one more shot at this if the conditions are good in next week.

By the way- this IR filter was useless for Venus just in case you were wondering.

10” LX50
ASI290mm mini for IR
ASI224mc FOR rgb
captured with ASIAIR Pro
1.8x Barlow
ZWO ADC (for rgb only)

RGB 20210915 1754
129sec , 12700 frames @98fps
320x240 - RAW8
2ms exposures rgb @ 300gain
AS!3 - 20% of

IR685 20210915 1650
122sec , 17400 Frames @ 141fps
320x240 - RAW8
3ms exposures rgb @ 300gain
AS!3 - 20% of

Registax6 for wavelet processing
GIMP to tidy & combine images