Mars - my best this season + animation

[iceman (Mike)]

Hi all

Mars Animation (110kb animated gif)

Yesterday morning the seeing was the best it's been in about a month, reaching about 7.5/10 and helped by fairly stable overnight temperatures allowing the mirror to cool to within 0.2° of ambient.

I grabbed 6 runs of Mars before it headed behind a tree in the North. Mars peaked at just under 31° altitude.

The best from the night is attached, and an animation of the 6 frames (an hours worth of rotation) can be downloaded here:

Mars Animation (110kb animated gif)

Best 300 frames stacked in each channel, from about 2000 frames captured. All captured at 30fps (1/30s exposure), with my 12" newt on EQ6, 5x powermate and DMK21AF04.

Thanks for looking.

[vindictive666 (John)]

Niiiiice

[rogerg (Roger)]

Wow, very very nice. I think that's easily better than anything I imaged back in the best oppositions a few yars ago. I am expecting to achieve anything like this, this time! Very good detail.

Nice touch having the animation too... lots of work in an animation I bet. Takes long enough to process one frame for me!

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Good one Mike.
How long till we get the full rotation?

[Liz]

Beautiful shots mike, and love the animation too.

[matt]

Well done, Mike.

Plenty of detail in that red channel.

[Dennis]

Hi Mike

Congratulations on a fine animation of Mars. Each frame is nice and detailed which makes the whole animation very pleasing to watch. It’s quite extraordinary, sitting at my desk, seeing the orbital dynamics of the red planet playing out in front of my eyes. Seeing the planets in this manner makes me keenly aware of how precious our spaceship Earth is.

Thanks for the inspiration.

Dennis

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Thanks Mike, very nice!

Bird

[Rodstar (Rod)]

She's alive! Love the animation, mate!

[h0ughy (David)]

Yep a pretty ordinary effort that one!! your a bit slack Mike - i was expecting to see a rover or two but I suppose this will have to do. there is a lot of the polar ice cap there, wonder how much will be there in a few weeks time?

[Ric]

Lovely and detailed images Mike. The animation is a beauty, it really brings Mars to life.

Top stuff.

[sheeny (Al)]

Very, very nice work Mike!

Al.

[RB (Andrew)]

Wow fantastic work Mike & I love the animation.

So cool.

[little col]

never seen a martian animation before and it looks really sureal to see a planet rotating , very nice

[2020BC (Bill Christie)]

Sensational, Mike.

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks for your comments and feedback. I had a look back over my 2006 Mars images yesterday, and overall they were still better quality due to more imaging opportunities and better seeing on occassion. Mars was also higher and closer to Earth back then.

It really hasn't been a good apparition so far, but hopefully as we approach opposition there'll be more chances to image Mars!

[spearo (Frank)]

love the animation!
frank

[goober (Doug)]

Wow, that's nice. Hoping to take a peek at Mars tonight - Melbourne's skies have finally cleared... pity about the 30 knot eastery forecast.