geoflewis

Thanks Kostas, I keep trying......🤷‍♂️

Thanks Stuart. it's been raining a lot here today, but I might pop my head out in an hour or so, after dinner as there is a forecast clear window before 8pm.....

I've always processed my images as linear in Registax6 - have no idea what dyadic does as I never even tried it.

Thanks Nicolàs, I updated my original post, with those details, but here you are: C14 + ASI462MC + Astronomik L filter + Baader Barlow lens for F21

I got out again with Mars last night, hoping to grap an image with Sinus Sabaeus central and before Syrtis Major rotated out of view, as I haven't got that aspect from this apparition yet. Unfortunately, I waited too long for Mars to gain better elevation, by which time clouds poured in. I sat under those clouds for over 1 hour with a very faint Mars on screen (seen through clouds, with high camera gain) and eventually decided that I'd just better grab some data through the cloud as it thinned. Seeing was also not great, so the combination of pesky clouds and indifferent seeing made it very difficult to determine accurate focus, but that's the nature of this hobby from the UK. Anyway, I managed three reasonable 6 min runs, so this is a de-rotated stack from the best 20k frames from each of 2x6 min, i.e. 40k frames in total - trying to de-rotate all 3 images, left nasty limb artefacts. The main albedo regions are visible, but little, if any, in the way of fine detail showing. It's not the view that I wanted, but still something for the album and it might help a bit with building a map of Mars 2022, if I ever get around to that. EDIT: C14 + ASI462MC + Astronomik L filter + Baader Barlow lens for F21.

Just had a play with it on my Mars data and looks very promising. The biggest issue for me initially is that with Mars being quite small I'm finding it more difficult to see the effects on the image as displayed even under the x2 zoom option. Maybe I'm missing how to make it look bigger on screen....🤷‍♂️

Excellent Stuart, I was out fighting the clouds and iffy seeing last night too. Will post my attempt soon...

Excellent images

That's excellent and I'm very envious, as it's one of the remaining view of Mars that I want for my collection this apparition, that I've not managed to get yet.

I'm in a similar place Dave. I think what BlurX has done might be a tipping point for me too....🙄🤔

Lovely

All excellent images

Very nice result

Well I'm pleased that you posted it Stuart, it's a fine image.

That's great to hear Jonathon, glad you got it sorted. How about sharing the final image that you got, I'd love to see it. Now that I know that you're using the manual focus knob on your SE6, I can better understand why you start off with a B-Mask. Certainly an electronic focuser would make life easier for you, but I know some folks still get excellent results without one.

Have you check your scope's collimation? As @Kon says, there's detail showing in that screen grab, so you're not too far away. Have you posted any of your processed images, it might help to see one of those, or even a video if you can share one of those here. I definitely wouldn't rely on a B-mask for focusing on the planets. When you say 'the seeing was consistently good at the time', how are you determining that? Are you saying that the on screen image was good, or just relying on looking at the sky. Personally, I can only assess the seeing for planetary imaging when I have an image on screen and can see how stable the image is, or not.....

Ok, I can now see the images. I don't use SharpCap, but I'm surprised that you're only getting 30 fps at 2.91ms with the 290 chip. I have a 290MM and would easily get over 100fps in FireCapture.

Yes, it's definitely a difficult challenge getting all the data and then being able to process them to a similar standard. As with the last apparition I seem to get lots of the same view and then nothing much else. I onlt have a coupke of Syrtis Mons this time around and quite poor quality. Part f the reason why I've kept at it the last few nights is to stretch the width of what I have from the current aspect. It's also been too cold for me to continue late into the night past midnight even if clear the past few nights.

and here, those links don't work for me....

That's excellent Kostas. I tried to produce something similar in 2020, but had too many gaps. Not sure if I've the entire Mars globe covered this time either, but I'll try to complete it again this year.

Thanks Craig

Yes, I think you're right. It was a tricky one, I dialled it right back, but started to lose more detail than I was happy with, so wound it back up a bit. It would be good if Registax allowed selective application of wavelets. I might take another look, though I'm pretty content where I got it to....

Thanks Stuart, no I haven't downloaded astro surface yet.....🤔

Thanks both, it definitely needed the revision; I'm much more pleased with the appearance of the polar hood now.

Thanks Jeremy. After feedback from @Kon, I've reprocessed the data and uploaded a revised de-rotated stack, which hopefully is an improvement.