It couldn't last... Mars christmas eve

Robert_T · #1 27-12-2005, 09:07 AM

Hi All, Santa's sleigh brought an end to a weeks worth of superb seeing in Brisbane - pleased I got the chance for some quality imaging

but sad to see mars back to wallowing in the usual soup

The seeing for these pics was around 4-5/10 compared with 8-9/10 for previous. Still I was surprised at the amount of detail I could still extract given Mar's disc is now down to around 12" or less (from a max ~20" at opposition). I repeated my recent experiment comparing images taken using the 2.5x power mate and a cheap 3x barlow plus ext tube (equating to ~3.5x), and once again found I could get better detail with the high amplification provided by the barlow/ext tube versus the powermate despite the latter's superior optical quality. SO even under mediocre seeing there can be an advantage in pushing up the image amplification at the scope versus doing this via resampling in registax.

Barlow/ext tube image at left and 2.5x powermate image at right.

cheers,

davidpretorius · #2 27-12-2005, 09:19 AM

they look great rob. One one hand, it is great that we can still image mars, but on the other, get up at 4'oclock and use the same setup you have at the moment and get blown away by jupiter!!!!

Dennis · #3 27-12-2005, 09:34 AM

Nice work Rob for a shrinking target. I've been catching up on processing, sleep and Xmas socialising now the clouds have rolled in.

Cheers

Dennis

Robert_T · #4 27-12-2005, 09:35 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidpretorius

they look great rob. One one hand, it is great that we can still image mars, but on the other, get up at 4'oclock and use the same setup you have at the moment and get blown away by jupiter!!!!

Hey DP, my eastern horizon is a bit cluttered for Joops right now. Mars still won't be as big as it is now for over two years so keen to milk it now while I can. DOn't worry I've got my eye on the big guy twinkling through the trees in the morn sky -have to be content with Saturn till it get's a little higher.

cheers,

RB (Andrew) · #5 27-12-2005, 10:14 AM

Hey Robert,

Well done, there's still a lot of detail there.
Excellent mate.

asimov (John) · #6 27-12-2005, 10:23 AM

Nothing wrong with those images. Good work Rob.

beren · #7 27-12-2005, 12:05 PM

Nice work

acropolite (Phil) · #8 27-12-2005, 02:20 PM

Nice images Robert, the neximage seems every bit as good as the toUcam...

Robert_T · #9 27-12-2005, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by acropolite

Nice images Robert, the neximage seems every bit as good as the toUcam...

Hi Phil, yeh as far as I've been able to determine the neximage uses exactly the same Sony chip as the Toucam.

Thanks all for the kind comments. If it stays fine this evening I might try and sneak away from family time for some more Mars imaging under cover of feeding the dog - it's amazing how long it takes to feed that damn dog sometimes.

cheers,

space lover · #10 28-12-2005, 09:10 PM

Wow, great images, looks pro