Mars last night

[Rocket Pooch]

My 1st mars, LX90 120sec @ 10FPS @F30, top 60% auto selected by Registax.

[Mike]

Holy crap ! That's superb !!

[Whitters]

Jaw drops to the ground.  

More please.
Realy shows the phase very nicely.

[JohnP]

Very nice - looks almost 3D - shame the ice cap isn't bigger - how much closer is it meant to get...?

John

[Rocket Pooch]

I just noticed there's something wrong with that image?  I thnk Registax has flipped one of the FITS files?

I will work on an improved image later

[Rocket Pooch]

Ok, panic over, I thought one of the FITS was flipped but it was not, I removed some of the bad frames from the stack and I think I'll stick with this version for the Gallery, what do you think, any better?

[Mike]

Looks better. Less noise as well.

[Ian]

that polar cap looks a good deal smaller than when we were imaging it in 2003.

Thats a pretty astonishing image Chris, who did you nick it from?  

Well done mate.

[Rocket Pooch]

Cheeky

Hopefully a) this thing will get closer over the next couple of months and b) I'll get a bigger scope when I get back from India mid October so I can have a real go at it.  Does anyone know how big it will get in comparison to this image?  Also is this the right way up?

Anyway the technical details for the imageare LX90 @ F30 (TAL 3x Barlow), 2 minute AVI 10FPS Vesta 680k web cam, IR filter, best 70% of the frames used.  Wavelett in registax 3 about CH1 = 0 CH2 = 0 CH3 = 0 CH4 = 12 CH5 = 45 CH6 = 60.  Export into phtoshop, Saturation upped a little then despeckled it, just a tadge.  Lastly did a majic wand on the right side and a Gussian blurr to get rid of the shadow on the right of the planet.

Seeing 6/10 transparency 8/10, could see down to MAG5 on the Geoff Cassiopia scale.  There's 2 tiny stars next to each other ones 4.8 the other 5, could see both ok.

Oh and cold feed as well, the due heater was about 90% flat out keeping the corrector clear and I spend at least 45 mins collimating the scope, it must have bounced on the car and it was well out.

[JohnP]

Chris according to SMP - at the moment it is 0.5707AU away from Earth & diameter is 16.40" (mag -1.4) - the phase is currently 90.5%. It'll make it's closest approach on Oct 30th when it will be 0.4641AU distant, Mag -2.3, Phase 99.5% & diameter 20.17".

Incidently when I imaged it back in 2003 it got as close as 0.374 AU & size was 25".

You can see all my images from 2003 here http://homepage.ntlworld.com/john.punnett/mars.html
If you look at the 'approach to opposition' montage you can see the relative change in phase & size over the months that I imaged.....

Cheers,  John

[Rocket Pooch]

Oh not as big as I thought it would get then, its going to be a pain to get a lot more detail out of it without a bigger scope.