Mars, 4th October from Canberra

Started by awesley, 10/05/2005 04:34PM
Posted 10/05/2005 04:34PM | Edited 10/05/2005 04:35PM Opening Post
This has taken me a couple of days to process due to the less than good seeing conditions when I grabbed the data. I've probably done 2x as much image processing on this one as on any other image.

Mars was at an altitude of around 30 degrees, and the seeing was very unsteady due to jetstream conditions that we suffer from time to time.

Images captured using my PGR Dragonfly Express on a laptop running Coriander and Linux. 10" newtonian @ F42 (approximately), Astronomik RGB filters.

Captured 3000 frames of red and green @ 50 fps, and 1800 frames of blue @ 30fps. Stacked the best 1000 of each.

Try as I might I can't get rid of the bright edge, the raw data is just too poor.

regards, Anthony

Attached Image:

awesley's attachment for post 27293

http://www.acquerra.com.au/astro
Posted 10/05/2005 06:01PM #1
Hi Anthony -

I like your image and processing values very much. Most of the edge of the planet is well shown but in bringing down the sky values to pure black the edge of the disk is somewhat compromised. The shadowed preceding limb is made smaller especially showing a less fully illuminated mars than actual. You can also see it at the south pole where the SPC has become a bump. I've stopped adjusting the sky values so strongly in my own images leaving some glow in the background sky - IMO it seems to help.

Keep up the fine work!
Alan

Alan Friedman

http://www.avertedimagination.com