First attempt at Mars - 05/04/2012

[tharpley]

Had my first attempt at planetary imaging last night, using a modded Microsoft LifeCam HD.

Decided on Mars for my first target as, by the time I got outside, Jupiter and Venus were too low in the sky and Saturn was obstructed by my house...

Here it is after some reprocessing in Registax 6 to bring out some detail:

Taken through a 6" Skywatcher 150P (750mm focal length) and a 2X Barlow lens.

It's pretty small and washed out, but I was pretty satisfied to have captured some surface features (can definitely make out Syrtis Major, which was visible according to Mars Profiler last night).

[Clayton]

Sorry but your image is not visible (to me)

Try posting as a JPG or PNG

[tharpley]

I've tried uploading it as a PNG instead. Hopefully it'll work now!

Thanks for letting me know!

I'm new to posting images on here, so probably didn't get it right - I've attached it below, just in case.

[Russe]

Well done! How many frames did you stack?

[tharpley]

I think there was around 300 frames stacked in the final image and the original .avi had a total of 3045 frames (captured at 1280x720 @ 30fps 1:41s).

[Russe]

Nice! Not possb with my SPC. Which chip is in your cam?

[tharpley]

According to (Gary Honis' mod instructions (which I followed), it's the Omnivision OV9712.

[Clayton]

Nice ! You caught some detail and the Polar Cap

[tharpley]

Thanks!

I'm looking forward to getting a R.A. axis motor, so I don't have to manually track in the future and also perhaps trying a 3X Barlow to increase the focal length some more. Going to a location with better seeing conditions would also be nice! (Currently observing from my back garden in the centre of Aberdeen...)