[iceman (Mike)]

Hi

Conditions were good yesterday morning, with good transparency and better than average seeing (but very dewey). I was capturing some deep space objects with the ED80, with the plan to image Mars when it got higher.

I almost left it too late though, and only managed to capture a few runs before Mars went too far to the North and behind a tree from my vantage point. That'll teach me for doing deep space imaging!!

Seeing was good for a change.. Mars had certainly got a bit bigger since I last captured it in good conditions back in May when it was only 5.4".

At this CM (South is up), Sinus Meridiani (where the rover Opportuntiy is currently exploring) and Mare Erythraeum are the main darker features to the South and Niliacus Lacus is the dark patch above the NPH. Chryse is the bright region between the two.

Captured with my 12" newt on EQ6, DMK21AF04 + 5x powermate + Astronomik RGB filters. (Red channel: 30fps for 2 minutes. Green channel: 30fps for 1 minute. Blue channel: 15fps for 1 minute ).
Registax was used to stack approx 400 frames from each channel and sharpen with wavelet processing. Photoshop was used for the rest of the processing (levels, curves, channel combine).
The image on the left is RRGB, where the red channel is used as the luminance.

Thanks for looking.