Hi all
Was imaging Jupiter the last few mornings (still processing them), and Mercury has been teasing me in its close conjunction with Venus.
So yesterday morning I decided to point the 12" at Mercury and see what happens. After all, I'm going to need an image of it for my 2008 planets composition, so now was as good a time as any to get those runs on the board
Attached is the result. Mercury was at a low altitude of 19°, but the seeing had generally been very good so it helped to get a number of sharp frames for the stack.
I'm pretty sure there's an albedo feature in the red and green channels, like an "hour hand" of a clock, pointing to about the "4" position. I've re-stacked and recombined a number of times and it keeps appearing, so I'm guessing/hoping it's real but have no way of confirming it. The Starry Night simulator of Mercury at that time does show a dark albedo region at about that position, so it could be it.
60fps, 1/60s exposure, 110/1200 frames stacked.
Anyway i'm very happy with the result given the altitude and is easily my best image of Mercury to-date (in fact i think it's only my 2nd or 3rd ever).
Thanks for looking.