Mars from UK - anybody?

[Tommohawk]

Hi all.

Some fabulous Mars images posted from around the world - but cant see any from UK. Obviously its grovelling along at a paltry 17 degrees, so never gonna be great - but nobody going to tread boldly?

I had a go and my effort is dreadful, so probably answered my own question, but... I'll show you mine if you show me yours! 

[Davey-T]

Had a job to even see it last night, no hope of imaging.

Dave

[Tommohawk]

Mars has been very bright and clear to the naked eye last 2 nights here - its just the imaging which is challenging. I don't have any filters which cant help.

[David Smith]

It's lost in all the trees from where I live. Can barely spot is naked eye let alone with my 'scope.

[Grotemobile]

I managed to get this a couple of weeks ago through the clouds. No luck since.

Might be lucky this week. The weather forecast , never seems to be right . 

Last night said clear. We got , wall to wall clouds , yet again. 

 

[Tommohawk]

You sir need the astrophotographer's little helper - a chainsaw. Best bit of imaging equipment I ever bought.

[Tommohawk]

Hey that's not bad especially for 2 weeks back! Did you use a filter? I'm being a bit of a Luddite (cheapskate) and still using modded DSLR - did OK with Jupiter, but I think Mars has too much IR... or something.

I reckon I'm being too ambitious at about F40 (F10 with x3 barlow which is actually nearer x4) Ideally I'd have a x2, but not in the locker currently. I should have done it just native F10 too - would have been better I think. Maybe I'll try again tonight - forecast is clear

 

[neil phillips]

5 hours ago, Tommohawk said:

Hi all.

Some fabulous Mars images posted from around the world - but cant see any from UK. Obviously its grovelling along at a paltry 17 degrees, so never gonna be great - but nobody going to tread boldly?

 

I had a go and my effort is dreadful, so probably answered my own question, but... I'll show you mine if you show me yours! 

Here's a synth green one I did recently

 

 

[Tommohawk]

Well TBH I'd be delighted with that - very nice!

I know you always turn out great images, but this is heaps better than my effort - I'm just getting pretty much a red blob. I'm using a modded DSLR which probably doiesnt help, but my Jupiters have always been pretty good. Somehow Mars is proving very tricky. If you or anyone else has any suggestions I'm all ears. Maybe I need filters, but I think I'm too late for that this time around.

[DOBGUYNORTHWEST]

Here's my first ever attempt at Mars. A bit unsure about it, still have more AVIs to process though.

[Tommohawk]

1 hour ago, DOBGUYNORTHWEST said:

Here's my first ever attempt at Mars. A bit unsure about it, still have more AVIs to process though.

 

well that looks pretty good too!

3 hours ago, neil phillips said:

Here's a synth green one I did recently

 

 

 

Neil - are you using an ADC or filters, or both? Also, showing my ignorancve, what is "synth green" please?

I'm struggling to get any detail and colour also a problem. When I use PIPP with "equalise RGB" checked I lose all the red. If I uncheck it I get too much red. Any thoughts?

[Stub Mandrel]

Here's mine...

 

 

[Tommohawk]

Hi Neil #2. Well thats got some detail too - what did you use? 150PDS with Lifecam maybe?

Thanks for all the responses - what this shows is that somethings badly wrong with my effort. Maybe the seeing was worse than I thought. Or the modded DSLR just cant hack it. Or maybe I cant hack it!

If things stay clear I'll try again tonight. I'm using a new C9.25, but maybe I'll revert to the 200PDS with Powermate which at least I'm familiar with.

Any more thoughts on processing would be appreciated. I'm using PIPP, AS!2, Registax and PS.

[cuivenion]

Here's my two attempts with a skywatcher 200p:

The larger image is from the 20th of April at about F20 and the the smaller one is from the 17th of May at F10. Pretty bad but I'm glad I managed to capture it, they're my first and second Mars images.

[Grotemobile]

https://www.firstlightoptics.com/uv-ir-filters/celestron-skyris-ir-block-filter.html

This is what I use. I don't use a Barlow. That last picture is not to bad. Got a bit of detail coming through there.

A smaller image , is sometimes better. I find I loose a lot detail , using a Barlow. What I use is , 2-- 80mm extension tubes.

This gives me F15 , on my C8 .

 

 

 

[Stub Mandrel]

14 hours ago, Tommohawk said:

Hi Neil #2. Well thats got some detail too - what did you use? 150PDS with Lifecam maybe?

Plus a Barlow. I had terrible results on G and B though.

[Tommohawk]

OK thanks for those replies - so it looks as though most folk are using filters one way or another.

I had another go last night, with the 200PDs with TV powermate x5 and still no visible detail on Mars. I tried various white balance settings to no avail - so I'm left with the tentative conclusion that IR blocking must be critical especially if using a modded DSLR as I am.

Damian Peach makes mention of IR blockers here, and especially says:  "If you are using a colour camera it’s very important to make sure you use an infrared blocking filter in front of the camera otherwise the colours will be skewed because of the high infrared sensitivity of most CCD chips."

I'm assuming he says its a problem for OSC rather than mono because if using mono the RGB filters will pas R G or B but not IR. (?)

Anyhow, not sure I want to order an IR filter for what may prove to be a once in 2 year Mars shot especially with the elevation being so low. If I could make a cheap IR filter just as an experiment it might be wrth it just to see the effect.

Funny how I did fine with Jupiter without a filter. Maybe IR passes through atmosphere better, so more of a problem with low altitude targets?

PS. Just found this which suggests IR doesnt pass atmosphere any better than visible light. So maybe its more about lateral atmos dispersion. If so, better start saving for an ADC!

 

[DOBGUYNORTHWEST]

57 minutes ago, Tommohawk said:

OK thanks for those replies - so it looks as though most folk are using filters one way or another.

I had another go last night, with the 200PDs with TV powermate x5 and still no visible detail on Mars. I tried various white balance settings to no avail - so I'm left with the tentative conclusion that IR blocking must be critical especially if using a modded DSLR as I am.

Damian Peach makes mention of IR blockers here, and especially says:  "If you are using a colour camera it’s very important to make sure you use an infrared blocking filter in front of the camera otherwise the colours will be skewed because of the high infrared sensitivity of most CCD chips."

I'm assuming he says its a problem for OSC rather than mono because if using mono the RGB filters will pas R G or B but not IR. (?)

Anyhow, not sure I want to order an IR filter for what may prove to be a once in 2 year Mars shot especially with the elevation being so low. If I could make a cheap IR filter just as an experiment it might be wrth it just to see the effect.

Funny how I did fine with Jupiter without a filter. Maybe IR passes through atmosphere better, so more of a problem with low altitude targets?

PS. Just found this which suggests IR doesnt pass atmosphere any better than visible light. So maybe its more about lateral atmos dispersion. If so, better start saving for an ADC!

 

Yeah I think IR filters are a must when planetary imaging, my QHY5L-II-C came with one built in.

[Stub Mandrel]

I had some real problems last time with green and blue being really distorted although re was OK. One suggestion was that without the IR filter I was focused to far into the red.

 

 

[Tommohawk]

4 hours ago, Stub Mandrel said:

I had some real problems last time with green and blue being really distorted although re was OK. One suggestion was that without the IR filter I was focused to far into the red.

Thanks for taking the time for that.

I had supposed that RGB filters do exactly that ie pass RG or B, and block IR. But, having read some more on this, it seems that isnt necessarily so. Some do others dont apparently.

Looks like defocussed and displaced IR leaks through the G and B filters (or Bayer matrix) and smears the images. I guess the effect is less on the R, because IR is closer to R. 

Just to be clear though, did you have an IR filter in for the above shot?

[ArmyAirForce]

17 degrees!! That's almost overhead! From here it is 13 degrees.

It is no longer high enough to see from my observatory, so a tried a semi hand held capture from the bedroom window sill with the Evo 80ED and x2 TAL barlow. The scope was on a home made MDF mount, balanced on the window sill on top of a pile of books, and nudged every so often to keep Mars on the Tiny ASI120mm sensor. Red channel only.

[Starwiz]

I tried to image it last night, but couldn't get anything more than a quivering blob!  

John

[Kokatha man]

For such low elevations there are some pretty nice images here...an ADC should certainly help when other aspects are right & you only need to look at some of Alex Obhukov's images from Russia (Moscow region I believe) to see what can be done with really good seeing & an ADC etc, despite the very low elevations. Alex of course is no slouch as a hi-res planetary imager, I should add!  

[neil phillips]

On ‎5‎/‎24‎/‎2016 at 16:43, Tommohawk said:

Well TBH I'd be delighted with that - very nice!

I know you always turn out great images, but this is heaps better than my effort - I'm just getting pretty much a red blob. I'm using a modded DSLR which probably doiesnt help, but my Jupiters have always been pretty good. Somehow Mars is proving very tricky. If you or anyone else has any suggestions I'm all ears. Maybe I need filters, but I think I'm too late for that this time around.

I think you need a dedicated planetary camera, to cherry pick good frames from the thousands collected. There was 20000  in the red channel here. That is nigh on impossible with a DSLR

I haven't used a DSLR so maybe I am wrong. Maybe you have some kind of video mode on the camera. But if your only collecting hundreds of frames. Its not enough.

Its certainly not too late, its just reached opposition.

[Stub Mandrel]

10 hours ago, Tommohawk said:

Thanks for taking the time for that.

I had supposed that RGB filters do exactly that ie pass RG or B, and block IR. But, having read some more on this, it seems that isnt necessarily so. Some do others dont apparently.

Looks like defocussed and displaced IR leaks through the G and B filters (or Bayer matrix) and smears the images. I guess the effect is less on the R, because IR is closer to R. 

Just to be clear though, did you have an IR filter in for the above shot?

No I didn't have an IR filter on.

This thread has some excellent examples of Saturn on the same night that show the red channel was spot on but blue and green were terrible!