Quote:
Originally Posted by iceman
Nice Work Trev. I've been considering getting an IR-pass filter for a while for Venus and Mars. How do you find it?
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Thanks Mike, have only had this filter for a short time but it seems to make a significant difference, especially when the target is close to the horizon, a noticeably more stable image from that with the RGB filters. I think the particular IR filter you need depends on your aperture. the 807 really does cut back significantly on what passes the filter and even with a 16" scope I am using a fair bit of gain. Astronomik also have another IR filter, I think about 742 that works well in smaller apertures.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DavidU
Thats cool. I didn't know the Deep Impact fly by craft was still operational.
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Thanks David, yes Deep Impact is still operational. Tim Livengood at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center is involved in the EPOXI mission which is using the spacecraft for 24 hrs on Oct 23rd to image Mars. Tim needs amateur data for a couple weeks either side of this for his project. This is a bit of a problem for us as we only have a hour between 3-airmass and astronomical twilight to get the data. Also it is not just a matter of imaging Mars, for the photometric information that he requires needs a comparison stellar image, captured and processed exactly the same way as the Mars image, for comparison and Castor is that stellar subject which is even lower than Mars.