Mars February 12th

[lepton3 (Ivan)]

Average seeing for Mars this morning, which is a nice change from the extremely poor seeing and clouds we have had in Adelaide for the past week.

Seems to be a bit of cloud visible on both limbs. Compared to an image I took on the 27th of January, it is apparent the polar cap is shrinking.

This image was taken with a DMK21AU04 camera, Orion RGB filters, C11 + TV2.5x Powermate.

Must say I am really enjoying this Mars opposition and yet they only get better than this for the next 6 years!

-Ivan

[swannies1983 (Dan)]

Nice image Ivan. I had my first look of the season last night after shooting some Eta. Certainly small and I could just resolve the polar cap and some surface markings.

[Clayton]

Nice going Ivan. It was pretty average here as well, not horrible but not great

[Shiraz (Ray)]

nice and smooth with good detail Ivan. seeing was wobbly over this way. Regards Ray

[lepton3 (Ivan)]

Thanks for the comment Dan. Yes, Mars needs a fair bit of magnification, but it is bright so takes it well.

Rob and Ray, cheers, yes seeing in Adelaide has been a real trial. I hope I get some still air some time near the opposition to get a killer shot. Got to make sure I'm out there if/when it happens.

-Ivan

[lepton3 (Ivan)]

Another Mars, this time monochrome.

At the end of the morning, just before 6am I had a last look at Mars. Since it was now pretty low, and seeing seemed to have deteriorated, I did not try an RGB set, just a longer run through a #25 red filter.

Here's the result of stacking 1400 of 7200 frames with Autostakkert. I've pretty heavily sharpened it and scaled up by 2.5x.

-Ivan