geoflewis

I asked Bird what frame rate he’s using with the new QHY5III-200M that he’s started using recently, the same one as Chris Go has been raving about, but he hasn’t replied to me yet. He’s put up some pretty impressive Saturns with it.

Well your results tell me that you’re on to something👏. I need to try that if the seeing doesn’t improve 🤞

Nice one.

Oh, that’s way faster than I’ve been trying, more than double. Maybe I need to drop from 5ms to 2-3ms and see what that gives. How many frames in the stack?

That’s superb Avani; you produced a real 3D effect with Io floating over the planet’s cloud tops.

You did it again Neil, another excellent result from this terrible weather. I got fed up fighting clouds and bad seeing last night and shut down early.

With forecast clear skies tonight, I watched the football confident that I'd be able to image Mars afterwards, but after crap game, I went outside to see yet more cloud piling in.... 😠. When will it give us a break.....😭

Nothing stiff about what Mars looked like to be last night, more like molten jelly......🙄

Yep, I think everyone in the UK is very frustrated with these ongoing poor conditions. We keep going though....🤞

Loks like you teased out a bit more detail Neil.

Thanks both

Thanks Chris, the only thing good about the strong wind here last night was that it compensated for the high humidity levels to keep things dry.

Thanks Kostas, got to laugh, or I'd be crying with this rubbish weather 🤣

I tried everything last night. I opened up at 11pm in clear conditions, but by the time I got Mars on the sensor I had passing clouds which laster over 1 hour. Winds were strong and gusty throughout, so I definitely started to suffer from wind chill. Once the sky cleared it was very apparant that not only was I fighting the wind, but the seeing was dreadful with Mars bouncing around like a 5 year old on a bouncy castle. I tried to focus with the barlow in, then out, with and without the ADC - nothing really worked. I ran few captures just in case.... This is the best 5% from each of 2x6 min SERs, resized from 96dpi to 144dpi in Affinity Photo. There's not much in the way of detail, but Syrtis Major is front and central with Hellas below it towards the south pole. The north polar hood and some clouds in the south are also visible.

The results speak for themselves, I think you nailed whatever was available last night. I'm nowhere close to that.

I also went out around 11pm, but had passing clouds for the first hour or more, so what with the wind and poor seeing, I had no chance to focus. Checking SAT24 I knew it would clear, so I hung around, though began to wish I hadn't bothered. It was 00:11 when I eventually got my first capture, but they were dreadful. That one was at 00:50. I captured a couple more, but gave up around 1am. The only plus is that it's the first time I've seen Mars transit the Meridian this apparition, shining very brightly at >61° elevation, so high that it seemed almost overhead.

It is a very trying hobby......😠

Wow Neil, what kind of magic are you using? That's very good given the terrible conditions last night. I fought for 2 hours, got frozen, but nothing much to show for my efforts.

You can say that again, it's been terrible so far this apparition.....

I've had a look at what I got and this is the best 5% from one of the 6 min runs. I haven't fully processed it, but it 10% sharpened in AS3!, then histogram, RGB align, RGB balance and wavelets in Registax. I tried everything, i.e. with the barlow, without the barlow, with and without the ADC, but I just couldn't get a stable image. The major (no pun intended) features can be seen, but no fine detail at all. I'm not sure if it's worth processing any further, but I'll probably try.

Hi Kostas, that's a nice Mars. I'm please that my tips gave you some different things to try; it is a lot of try this try that, I find. I've just come inside from what I think will prove to have been a fruitless session. About the only thing I'm confident about is that I got frozen cold. The wind was really too strong and the seeing was absolutely dreadful, so I spent ages NOT getting anything focused. I ran a few SERs, which I'm just going to transfer over to my processing laptop to take a look, but I fear they will all end up on the cutting floor.....

Thanks Paul, that's brilliant. I had it for the last apparition in 2020 and possibly 2018, but I couldn't recall where I got it and thought maybe it wasn't available this time.

@paulastro I see that you posted a screenshot of the Mars Mapper 2022 app, so where can I get that please? All I can find is it windowed in a page of Astronomy Now, but not how to download the app itself.

Yeah, that's not going to work very well....😱. I get some wind protection in the observatory and the AP1200 mount is a brute, so winds don't bother it, but the C14 with it's dew shield acts like a sail and I worry most about the roof being lifted of the rails if I open up in strong winds. I'll make a decision at the last minute, but it's hard to pass up a clear sky if I get one, as they're like hens teeth currently.

Not to put too fine a point on it - it's been goddam awful....... Forecast is for it to clear here around 10pm tonight, but the wind is really strong, so I'm a bit anxious about opening the roll off roof on the observatory, as there's nothing to secure it when open, other than it's own weight.....🙄🤔