Mercury high-res - 4th March 2008

[iceman (Mike)]

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.

[Dennis]

Nice work Mike – that is one tough planet at that low altitude. On my monitor, there appears to be some colour fringing at the limb; blue/green then moving to yellow/red? Is this from differential atmospheric refraction due to the low altitude?

I think I can just make out the feature you described, although I’m not too sure on how to chase this down. Is there a NASA or JPL website that shows surface features?

What was the focusing operation like with the planet so low and a lack of distinct features?

Should look very nice with your to-be 2008 series.

Cheers

Dennis

[Alchemy (Clive)]

definately runs on the board, considering its altitude its suprising you can get anydetail. Well done

hope your'e going to include the outer planets in your 2008 series. neptune, uranus..... id chuck in pluto for good measure..... see that deep sky practice will come in usefull now.

[bird (Anthony Wesley)]

Nice work Mike, well done!

Bird

[davidpretorius]

woo hoo, noice work gentle man

it has been tempting us for a while, this little planet

[Matty P (Matt)]

A very nice capture of Mercury, Mike. Well done.

You don't get to see too many these days.

[iceman (Mike)]

Thanks guys.

Dave Tyler responded with a "process bashing" of my image and it did reveal the feature in the spot I had seen it, and Elias on CN also said he has captured something similar before, so it might be real. Frank Melillo from ALPO Mercury is going to take a look at it too.

Apparently an IR-pass filter helps to reveal surface detail in Mercury, so it might be worth investing in one if it can also be used on Mars in bad seeing.

Alchemy, yes I'll definitely be going for Uranus and Neptune, and would also love to get Pluto but it will be with my widefield setup so it won't be more than a speck

Focusing was tough, but being a crescent phase made it slightly easier when the sharp frames did pop into focus.

Thanks for commenting.

[iceman (Mike)]

Giovanni Adamoli, from the WinJupos project who analyses my Jupiter images, also confirmed the albedo features on Mercury.

As regards your March 4th Mercury image, I can positively confirm you registered a known dark equatorial streak, reported in albedo maps (such as attached Graham’s). It is a junction between so called “Solitudo Neptuni” (left) and “Solitudo Poenicis”, running about 10°N between L = 160°-220°. Coordinates of Mercury’s disk centre at your observation’s time were about L = 162°, latit. = 7°S.

It's given me a renewed interest in imaging Mercury, and getting an IR-pass fitler, but the problem at the moment, is that Jupiter is there. When the seeing is good, it takes a strong will to slew away from a 45+deg Jupiter, to a <20deg mercury.. This morning I just didn't have it in me

[h0ughy (David)]

fantastic result Mike. LOL might be time to get a 16"