Mars afocal 24 Jan 08

[themos]

I am pleased with this because it was done afocally and with a Dobsonian ( the 300P 12" f/5). I don't think I could have tracked the planet had I attempted a Barlowed prime-focus webcam take. The afocal setup involved a frame that clamps onto the (25mm FL) eyepiece and holds the Canon PowerShot A540 via the standard screw fitting. Settings: ISO80, 1/250 sec, f/5.6, full zoom (4x), manual focus.

Adding: This is a Registax4 stack of about 30 frames. I shot about 300 but about half were out-of-focus (bad use of camera on my part). I used ninox (as KK suggested) to automatically crop from 6 megapixels to 100x100 before giving to Registax4.

[Cloudwatcher]

Your image will not enlarge when I click on it. However,it looks like you have managed to grab quite a bit of detail judging by the small image and the colour is very good.

Cheers

CW

[russ]

that's a great capture for a single afocal shot with a digicam.

[themos]

I removed the "click to enlarge" bit now. Thanks for the feedback, I am definitely going to get more shots of Mars with the same setup and hope to get lucky with the seeing.

[lunator]

Goog

pic Thermos

Syrtis Major is an area that you can see when taking afocal pics.

great catch

Cheers

Ian

[Sam]

There's quite a bit of detail there with a hint of the polar cap - you've done very well in achieving that.

[themos]

I tried again last night but I only got an orange blob. I will blame the seeing (even though I could make out the E component of the Trapezium, with hints of the F). Let's see if anyone managed a decent shot...