Date
1 - 7 of 7
Mars near opposition
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Howard Ritter
Hey Lowbrows and Astronuts—
Just to show what can be accomplished by a newbie with rudimentary imaging skills, 6” of top-quality apo aperture, unassisted manual focus and seeing that’s sub-par even for the Midwest, here’s my first-ever effort at imaging Mars. Best 5000 of 10000 7-ms exposures at 142 fps with ASI2600MC, stacked in Autostakkert!, wavelet-processed in Registax, and touched up in Photoshop and DeNoise with final touches by son Phil. I wonder if the white overlapping the dark shapes at the edge of the cap is a haze coming off the cap. For comparison, a Hubble image with almost the same central meridian (it’s the one on the right). —howard 
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Harley Davidson
You sure you didn't lie to us about this being your first attempt :) Very nice!
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tony On 11/22/2022 12:04 PM, Howard Ritter via groups.io wrote:
Hey Lowbrows and Astronuts— |
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Worsel
Howard
Excellent image! What image scale were these? Alternatively, what is the focal length of your apo? Bryan |
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Howard Ritter
Thanks for the kind words, everyone! I’m a little surprised by the reception that the image from my li’l’ ol’ 6” of aperture got.
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I DID say that it’s the RIGHT-hand (or bottom) image that was the one from Hubble, right? 🤣 The refractor is an Astro-Physics 155EDF, an f/7 with FL 1085mm. I’m using a Tele Vue 4x PowerMate, so EFL 4340mm. The camera is an ASI22600MC, with 3.76µm photosites. The plate scale is 0.”18 per pixel or 47arcsec/mm. The scale far exceeds the 0.”8 resolution of the optics and the 2” or so seeing, but still, presented on-screen at a comfortable size, the pixelation is obvious – fewer than 90 Px across the diameter of Mars. This is difficult to get rid of even with up-resing in Photoshop. A planetary camera with photosites half the size of mine would be a good start for a 4000mm EFL. Better yet, a 14” f/10 OTA with a 4x PowerMate. That’s Christopher Go/Damian Peach gear! —howard
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Howard, that is an outstanding image especially when you're new'ish to this. Nice work! Stuart Heggie Hey Lowbrows and Astronuts— |
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Dan_Paris
Impressive level of detail Howard!
clear skies, Dan |
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Howard Ritter
Thanks, Dan! I was pleasantly surprised myself. I took care with DeNoise to make sure it generated no artefactual detail. I’m quite excited about what I might be able to get if we ever get a quiet atmosphere before opposition falls far behind us.
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Good seeing, —howard
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