Mars from home...

[Kokatha man]

Imaged from home last night due to work commitments etc and although it's a lot easier to set up in the backyard the local conditions are rarely conducive for good imaging outcomes.....but couldn't resist one last attempt while Mars was still over 13 arcseconds in diameter.

Tranparency and seeing were below par, clouds kept floating through on every rgb run and the onscreen images were very jittery: the steadiest it got was this run just after midnight and I only got this half-decent rgb set because the blue channel at the end of the set before looked reasonable so we decided to cobble a green and red onto it (it's own r & g weren't worth bothering with).....but although there is quite a bit of detail colour was an absolute pain to try and balance up.....left it at this washed out appearance as anything else was either too pink or far off in some other respects - and I blame the conditions for that to a large extent...

Nothing like the resolution etc of my previous image but it's one of my "rare" home captures - and possibly the last of this apparition, so I thought I'd post it.

[Virgoman]

Glad you did post it, Darryl. A lovely image with Syrtis Major beautifully highlighted.

[AztecastroMcJ]

Very nice, lots of detail there Darryl

[bigal1]

Cracking image really like the ammount of detail these big scopes resolve .

[andyjbj]

good shots i need to work out the best fliter to use to got the pics right

[Rattler]

Great image that man.

[Clayton]

That's a great shot Darryl

[beamish]

Nice one Darryl ! great detail !

[Kokatha man]

Thanks everyone for the kind comments - as I said elsewhere, the seeing literally disintegrated straight after this capture finished and it turned so bad so suddenly we thought it must have been the roof inflicting the radical change.....but turning to Saturn high up in uncluttered sky proved that the seeing had gone to the dogs....!:blob10:

[neil phillips]

some nice detail around the north pole Darryl,last night here was just awful,plus i discovered my collimation is moving, now got to figure out where the movement is either primary, (collimation drift seemed to sever ) or the focusser prime candidate

[Alan]

OK colour a bit off and you may not feel it is not up to your very high standards Darryl but most of us would be more than happy with that amount of detail

Further to our last exchange (I feel younger already) I hope that you will continue to find the time to image and post, albeit infrequenlty, as I and I am sure many others have benefited greatly from your willingness to share your imaging skills and knowledge and of course your excellent pictures.

Cheers,

Alan

[Kokatha man]

Thanks Neil and Alan: heh-hee Alan, you might be feeling younger but I'm getting more tired by the day.....that night we "only" stayed up till 2am and both of us felt like zombies all of the next day - I said to my wife that unless we're doing any imaging it should be "in bed by 10:30pm" - and even though we "keep our own hours" going to bed at 1am and getting up at 10am is starting to get a bit weird..!

I think the long nights (many in a row) have finally caught up with me as I've not been too good lately.....but with Mars' apparition almost over and Saturn rising earlier each night it will make any imaging attempts a bit easier and less "night-owlish".....

I've commented over on CN that I now suspect the "glossy Mars" effects are merely outcomes of people using the higher histogram values when imaging that planet - this image is starting to creep towards the shiny (and this aspect would have become more accentuated if the planet was a deeper red) which I prescribe to me deliberately using a 65%+ histo for each channel to see whether that was causing said (I'd already suspected it and deliberately set them higher to find out.)

Normally I'd use a 60%+ or so histo but I think quite a few folks are employing histo's around the 70% mark which is my take on how the image outcomes result.....my preference is for flatter colours but that's an individual's choice.....and I do like to think of myself as an individual:eek::) but more importantly I want to understand what's happening on an objective level with all the various imaging parameters - and that's one of the reasons why I rabbit on in these posts..!

[Space Cowboy]

Thats a very fine image Darryl!

[Kokatha man]

Thanks Stuart - for one from home it ain't bad:).....we live just below the Willunga Escarpment which dumps air at very high speeds onto us most nights - that and the fact we're a few hundred metres from the beach (mists & fogs etc) means it's not often you get any sort of a chance planetary imaging from here....!:blob10:

The very occassional "dead calm" nights can be excellent though (this wasn't one of 'em unfortunately!) and then the waves sound like they're pounding on your front door...