Mars March 14th

[Space Cowboy]

Quick process before bed. Conditions were very damp and heavy with poor transparancy and average seeing. First image using auto focusser.

This is f31 at 150% taken at 9.48pm.

[Atlas]

Even in lousy conditions, your photo's always impress. Well done sir.

[cgarry]

Great image as ever and I'm impressed you processed one before bed. I grabbed some captures tonight, but processing will have to wait until I have had some sleep.

[Brumtaffy]

Excellent Mars given the conditions

Is that cloud detail you have there?

[Sam]

Looks pretty good to me Stuart, even with the poor conditions you've turned out a great image.

[beamish]

XLNT Stuart, you're on fire !!! As was said , even in poorer conds. you're still producing quality images. Great cloud detail, tho..... is it a tad too blue around the limbs ??

dives for cover !

[Space Cowboy]

Cheers fellas! Looks like this was the best being only 2nd avi of the night before dew hit the secondary and conditions became more murky.

The are indeed clouds Brum, came out quite well on this shot.

Thanks Karlo it looks like I burn with a blue flame lol I'm not sure whether the blue tint is natural for Mars or not though I do remember Darryl saying this was a real feature of Mars.

[Dove]

Gorgeous Picture there mate.

[neil phillips]

it was very jittery Stuart, but you got some good data out of it

[neil phillips]

colour balance looks balanced to me, there is a lot of blue in Mars, though many tend to reduce it i think, basically not prefering the balance. My recent example where i showed a blue reduced and balanced shot is a example. I like your processing. you ere on the side of smooth, but i guess its better than snow flakes. The art is getting both at the same time. thats harder

Good shot under difficult conditions

[bigal1]

Great image Stuart especially with iffy conditions still showing loads of detail

[JamesF]

Well done. It's hard work getting decent images when the dew is heavy. I'm itching to get out and get some more of Mars myself, if only the fog would ever lift.

James

[astroman001]

Nice image considering the conditions. If I may suggest, focus may have been a bit out for this image, it doesn't just look like the seeing. You can see the potential in the image.

best regards

Peter

[Clayton]

Nice looking image Stuart with great colour, and detail

Perhaps let down a little by the conditions!

How did you find focusing??

[Space Cowboy]

Thanks again for your comments guys!

I did wonder about the focus Peter but it looks better on this re-pro using castrator before stacking in as!2 with 1.5 drizzle.

Focusing was solid as a rock Rob but Peter has worried me lol I think it was the conditions as all the images look the same and if focusing was hit and miss there should be a distinct difference.

[neil phillips]

cant be sure but the edge looks quite tight to me, which often looks mushy with poor focus. collimation and optics are two other things that can cause soft images, not trying to freak you out.

Its one thing i dont trust, is optics, good sets and average sets can both come from the same company. I know this to be true. Most people belive there all consistent, in my experiance they are not. Its interesting that Rob using dob tracking suffers soft images too. But once in a while they get more distinct, like hes recent saturn and Mars shot. Big optics are often soft under anything but good seeing. But at 10 " its not so much of a problem. the levels of detail i get at less than perfect nights show this. is your tracking smooth Stuart, thats another killer of fine detail. All said and done it might be seeing. But it was jittery here too last night. and the images dont look soft. So im not sure. Just trying to help you think about the possbillities. As you put a lot of work into what your doing. one last thing how dewed up were the mirrors when this was taken, another possible cause Btw that repro does look better. Another possible thing processing being too laid back having said that it looks nice and natural

[bish]

This is great. I struggle for hours to try and see any detail at all, so nice one for managing to capture it in an image.

[Space Cowboy]

Cheers Bish!

Neil conditions were extremely heavy and the scope was wet before I started imaging so I was not expecting pin sharp images. Collimation could be an issue as my laser is giving different readings each time I turn it in the self centering holder. Its been fine until now so i don't know whether I've over tightened the holder and squashed the laser tube which after all is plastic or even distorted the holder. I did have this issue with a previous laser after purchasing a self centerer that showed a consistent reading when used with a thumb screw holder and sent the self centering one back.

The live view on screen last night was never sharp so i don't think the new auto focusser is to blame...well...not until i've tried it under clearer conditions!

[tich]

That's a beautiful image of mars, you're right about the damp & dewy conditions last night I couldn't believe how soon everything got soaking wet.

[Space Cowboy]

Thanks Tich!

Here is another from that night taken at 10-33pm. This was using 2 stacked ext tubes + 5x powermate.

[tich]

Again another fabulous image Stuart,

I've only just started up myself only had a scope since December so all this is new to me. I have 2 Skywatcher 2X Barlows that I stack together, another 2X Barlow which looks questionable quality although it seems to work quite well & it was free so can't complain. I have a Astro revalation 5X Barlow but the images I have tried to capture with that have been pretty dire to say the least. Although when I've used it just for observing it's not to bad. I think I'll need to save up my pennies to get better lenses & eyepieces but funds have been tight recently. I've also brought some various Plossl lenses & a zoom lens for when I go out for a night's observing.