Constructive criticism on my imaging please!

[choochoo_baloo]

Mars 15.4.bmpMars 15.4.bmpMars 15.4.bmp

Dear all,

Attached is my final image of Mars, post stacking and some processing. I took it last night on my: Skywatcher 150P, RA motor drive, 6x Barlow and Nikon D90 in .avi video mode.

I am pleased to have an image which clearly shows a red round planet

However I would appreciate constructive criticism regarding the following:

1. Is it slightly out of focus (the original telescope recording). If so would a Bahmitov mask be the solution?
2. No matter if everything is 'perfect' is this magnification too low to distinguish the polar caps and some surface detail (6*750 = 4500mm focal length for the D90 camera).
3. Have I missed some obvious tricks in Registax 6?

Thanks in advance.

[Leveye]

How many frames? I use over 2000 which is about 90 seconds of video at 30 FPS. You'll get much more detail. Also you could use some more magnification here. Well done all the same!

[todd8137]

Hi there not sure what the blue blobs are and if you would not have said these were mars I would not have known you may want to up load them as JPEG am on the ipad and had to click them they small and just look way out of focus a bit of ca as well it's a good go but the planet will always be small on a big chip of a dslr and short fl I have cropped the image to see if it's any better there's a lot going on I can not explain but now you now how it all works onwards and upwards the second one is the bump you uploaded

Pat

[Northern Soul man]

Here's mine from the other night, just to compare - I used the CPC 1100 and an old Philips Toucam 840 - just shows that Mars is a very tricky object to image let alone observe - using the 11" SCT and a x2 barlow (F20) the avi was taken just after 11.00pm (BST) at 30 fps (1 1/2 min video) stacked with registax 6  with Mars not at its highest point - but high enough - so Choochoo a great start mate with such a very difficult object under very challenging conditions.

You mention out of focus, but when I start the capture (SharpCap) each frame looks very "soft", so I try to re - focus after every capture - but with Mars being low down, your looking through a large amount of atmosphere, so, to me, each of my captures look out of focus, Its only when I stack and adjust using the wavelets that the image really improves - is it the same for you?

Paul.

[choochoo_baloo]

Thanks all, will look into these issues!