My Mars

Hats off to the wonderful job you guys do on planet imageing. On my scope, I know the colmination is good but when it comes to focusing on a planet that's jiggeling like a bowl of celestial jello how do you get around that? This image of Mars was taken on 7-3-03. I have an 8" LX200 and the imager is an ST5c. The image is about 150 frames each of RGB. Also used a 5x Powermate barlow. Any tips from the pros would be appreciated.

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Hi Brian,

Very good Mars image

I don't consider myself a pro at all but here are some
things I do to focus

Next to the seeing focusing gives me the most trouble
too , try setting the frame rate to the highest one
to focus with then back down when you image, also try
to focus to a sharp edge on the planet sometimes the
features don't show good enough to focus on.
Don't over expose , I think a lot of people do
that .

Thanks,

Wes Higgins

Hi Brian

I have started using a Hartman mask (aperture mask with eg 3 holes at a certain radius) to focus my scope. As soon as the three images merge you are at least quite close to focus.

Hope this helps

Frank Gelsdorf