Mars Mar 5th 14:30 UT

[lepton3 (Ivan)]

There was some reasonable seeing last night before the clouds came in at 1am. Seeing was better than average, I estimate 7/10 at times, reasonably stable but "soft".

Still, I got some Mars at opposition so I am pretty happy. This is an RGB, and an IR. C11 + Orion LRGB filters + 2x barlow + spacer + DMK21AU04 camera. Both are scaled by 1.3x, but the IR is larger because I extended the spacer to the limit.

Hope you are all enjoying this Mars opposition as much as I am.

-Ivan

[Lester]

Hi Ivan, the IR image has really cut through the atmosphere to reveal a lot of detail. IMO with the RGB image being that soft I'd say the seeing was much less than 7/10.

All the best.

[Shiraz (Ray)]

Nice image Ivan. Yep, sure is enjoyable to see the red planet up close again, but it would be icing on the cake if the jetstream would go away for a hour or two. Regards Ray

[lepton3 (Ivan)]

Originally Posted by Lester

... IMO with the RGB image being that soft I'd say the seeing was much less than 7/10....

Thanks Lester, you may be right. The seeing was a bit strange. I usually get wobbles like a flag in the breeze, but last night it was reasonably stable, but just plain soft.

Originally Posted by Shiraz

... sure is enjoyable to see the red planet up close again, but it would be icing on the cake if the jetstream would go away for a hour or two...

Thanks Ray, looking at the forecast we may get a respite in the jetstream on Friday night. Forecast can change a lot in a few days, we can only hope.

Meanwhile, here's one from a little later in the night, when Mars had climbed a bit higher.

-Ivan

[Saturn%5 (Graeme)]

Great Effort Ivan

[asimov (John)]

Nice work Ivan. Mars is pretty forgiving of seeing, more so than the others, with the exception of Venus. Yeah, that darned jetstream is dominant in these images > Stable & soft on the livefeed.

[Quark (Trevor)]

Shame about the jet Ivan but these conditions is where IR really shines.

Well done
Regards
Trevor

[Paul Haese]

That last image is quite nice Ivan. I walked outside last night and wondered what the seeing was like at Clayton. There was some scintillation up at Glenalta but it was pretty still. Clayton had been clouded out since 8pm, but there were breaks. I wonder.

[Clayton]

That last one is nice Ivan. Your description of the seeing matches what I had the other night only I reckon you had it worse!
Reasonably steady but blurry! What i call fast seeing and what I think is a result of the much higher and faster moving Jetstream. It makes it a real task to focus and IMHO hardly worth the effort at times
Still you managed some nice shots to remember opposition I got nothing
Congratulations

[lepton3 (Ivan)]

Graeme, thanks for the thumbs up.

John, quite right about Mars being more forgiving. Nice and bright so you can get reasonably long AVIs to stack.

Thanks Trevor, I just started experimenting with IR using my photometric "I" filter.

Thanks Paul. Good luck tonight (actually looks pretty good in town right now).

And here's the middle shot from last night, with I think a better colour balance. Each channel is 1200 from a 4000 frame avi.

-Ivan