Planetary weekend :)

[riklaunim]

Weather got bet better - clear sky but very annoying -15 or even -20C I've started by testing some new equipment like Vixen flip mirror - it did help with aligning, but caused some off-axis / tilt as images got a nasty ghost (while a star test did not show any noticeable miscollimation). Later (29 jan) without the flip mirror it was much better (but not perfect).

I've also added orange visual filter to the list of luminance filters in the wheel (L, Yellow #12, Baader Orange and Red). It does work. In case of Mars or Jupiter the more infraredish the filter is the brighter red/brown/orange features will be (and in Mars case it may kill the clouds a bit). Aside of that they are very bright and allow ultra-low-noise recordings.

I also managed to catch Venus from my balcony (it doesn't support west sky areas very well...) and with a bit of luck and strong sharpening Astrodon UVenus avis revealed some cloud details. Very dim channel. ~425 narrowband filter (for 418 nm cloud window) was fuzzy but a 1000nm longpass probably caught the structures from 986 nm (this is even filter cut-on wavelength).

Setup: C11 + TeleXtender 2x + DMK21AU618 / Point Grey Chameleon + Atmospheric dispersion corrector... Some raw stacks added too!:

Chameleon; Luminance (L filter), #12 yellow, Baader orange and red longpass; ~02:22 28 jan:

Chameleon; Baader orange f/20 bin 1; 02:30 28 jan:

Chameleon; RGB, ORGB, YRGB, and orange channel; ~01:25 28 jan:

DMK; Jupiter YRGB; ~17:14 28 jan:

DMK; Jupiter ProPlanet 742 and Luminance (L filter); ~16:40 29 jan:

* Download raw stacks

DMK; Venus X1000 - PP742 - UVenus; and UVenus-(X1000,PP742,UVenus); 16:02 29 jan:

UVenus, PP742, X1000:

DMK; RGB, YRGB, ORGB, Redlum-RGB; ~03:00 28 jan:

DMK; Mars RGB; ~02:00 29 jan:

DMK; Mars LRGB; ~02:00 29 jan:

DMK; Mars YRGB; ~02:00 29 jan:

DMK; Mars ORGB; ~02:00 29 jan:

DMK; Mars RedLum-RGB; ~02:00 29 jan:

DMK; Moon; PP742; ~18:01 29 jan:

maturation ratio image, mafic ratio image (in theory), and 1000 nm+ channel:

I tried to replicated what Moon geologists do (check my article). I still need to check if the colors make sense and how they translate to the space probe images done with more precise filter set (and align the second set of different area)...

* Download raw stacks - you need to process them (sharpen), align vs each other and then divide (by flats) one by one for given color channel.

[hunterknox]

A weekend well spent. Mars is particularly appealing, and still a month from opposition!

[King]

A very fruitful weekend! I'm particularly impressed at the Mars/Saturn shots though I'm more intrigued about those cloud details you've been getting with that UVenus filter. I want to treat my next telescope to one of those...

[riklaunim]

Cloud details on Venus are in 3 imaging windows - UV, early blue (418 nm) and far IR (986 nm). Last two are for the same feature - sunlight reflected at 60 to 70 km.

Typical UV filters like Astrodon UVenus are highly priced as it's very hard to make a UV filter without an IR leak (Baader had problems with that!). Optional solutions, much cheaper (but usually with lower transmission) are filters like visual violet (#47) + BG39 - covers both UV and early blue, or UG1 + BG39 - UV only, lower transmission.

And it's very hard to get those cloud details. Seeing must be very good (+ a lot of frames required)

[bm1980]

Good stuff, excellent images

Regards

Ben

[Clayton]

Wow, you've been busy

Nice work Rik

[Zul]

Wow very nice images

[Connor]

WOW. MARS. WOW

[Anweniel]

You got another fan here for your Mars pics, in particular the 28th jan shots. To be honest they are all pretty great planetary pics just that the Mars ones really stand out for me, thanks for sharing