The high altitude wind was about 50kts at 200hPa, but seeing was fairly good at times between clouds - it closed down completely though before Saturn reached full altitude. Managed one reasonable image of each planet, so it was worthwhile.
Mars shows some significant cloud, and maybe a dust storm at the end of the Hybleus extension. Hellas clouds are still strong and the ice around the polar collar shows up well.
Saturn shows a large spot and other structure in the previous storm zone and possibly a couple of smaller ones nearer the pole (could be noise though..).
These images of Mars and Saturn are awesome, showing some really nice features and detail, with lovely tonal ranges that make them pop. You planetary guys on IIS are really posting some wonderful images of our solar system family.
Looks like a pretty successful night Ray, both images are top class. The bright spot in the NEB is interesting. I imaged it March 20th, the first time I have seen a bright discrete spot in the NEB this apparition, certainly something to keep an eye on. In good seeing there are faint cloud features also in the NEB which are related to some of the material dredged up by last years great storm but this bright spot is something else.
thanks Dennis - it's great to have two of them up at about the same time.
thanks HCR32
thanks very much Rob
thanks Trevor. interesting things going on out there - hope we get some top seeing soon.
thanks Paul. It is surprising how one gets comfortable with a particular alignment - I still find WINJUPOS to be annoying when it realigns my images, even though it has a very good reason to do so.
great results! The level of planetary photography here in IIS is very high. Your Mars is awesome. Very detailed and nice colors. Saturn very detailed too. But the colours are very intense. Is this a RGB or did you use other filters?
thanks Werner. these are RGB taken through Astronomik filters and combined in IRIS. I do not modify with gamma or saturation at all, so the colour intensity is a direct representation of the orginal object - after the imaging and sharpening processes of course. Colours are balanced by setting the main ring on Saturn to neutral gray and largely by eye on Mars (using a Hubble image as an initial colour reference). regards ray
Nice results Ray. Mars starting to show a definite phase now.
I think I can see the effect of the 50kt winds you mentioned; the Mars is just a bit "softer" than some of your others. The Saturn has some excellent detail, doesn't look affected at all to me.
thanks Ivan. Yes, the Mars definitely shows softening from the high alt wind - it just drains out the very fine detail no matter what exposure time is used - I guess that means that the turbulence supports multiple simultaneous imaging paths. Saturn was quite a bit higher, which makes a big difference. The upper level winds above about 50kts have been hanging around here for 7 weeks now - not very helpful for imaging a planet that stays below 45 degrees altitude, so was very pleased to get a halfway decent image. Regards ray
