Two faces of Mars

[MarsG76]

Hello Astronomers,

These are two of my best images imaged in the last two weeks. I had plenty of flops but these two turned out ok.

Having then 15 days apart made it so that nearly the opposite sides of Mars are facing us in each photo.

I'm very sure that in the photo from 11 July, I captured Olympus Mons and Tharsis Montes... at least looks like the right shape... 

...and in the image from the 26th July Hellas Planitia and Syrtis Major Planum are visible.

Also looks like that the Dust storm is settling down, so perhps in the next week or two it dies down and we'll get some great eyepiece views of the Martian surface features.

MG

[Knighty2112]

Drool! Excellent images. Well done!  

[tooth_dr]

Unreal Mariusz!

[JimothyC]

Wow nice shots. What setup do you use to get captures like this?

[Demonperformer]

Excellent shots.

[MarsG76]

1 hour ago, JimothyC said:

Wow nice shots. What setup do you use to get captures like this?

It's an 8" SCT and cameras (CCDs) are Skyris 618C for the color data, and the IS DMK21au618 CCD for IR.

[Grotemobile]

Very good . Loads of detail there. I was out the other night & 

could see very little detail due to the storm.

[MarsG76]

Just now, Grotemobile said:

Very good . Loads of detail there. I was out the other night & 

could see very little detail due to the storm.

It looks like the storm is subsiding... the image from 26th July revealed a fair bit of surface detail/markings... perhaps its just the seeing that was blocking your details the other night??

[Grotemobile]

The planet was very red . The image its self looked quite sharp.

Just very little detail on the planet apart from the ice caps. 

[MarsG76]

7 minutes ago, Grotemobile said:

The planet was very red . The image its self looked quite sharp.

Just very little detail on the planet apart from the ice caps. 

Maybe you were looking at the side which is quite bare, the area between Olympus Mons and Valles Marinares.

 

[Grotemobile]

I forgot about that. The planet does rotate. Been looking @ the 

moon to much. Beam me up Scotti.?

[MarsG76]

2 minutes ago, Grotemobile said:

I forgot about that. The planet does rotate. Been looking @ the 

moon to much. Beam me up Scotti.?

There is a iPhone app I use called "Mars Globe", there you can determine which side is facing us at a set time... if you're not using an iPhone, there might be a android version.

 

[Grotemobile]

1 minute ago, MarsG76 said:

There is a iPhone app I use called "Mars Globe", there you can determine which side is facing us at a set time... if you're not using an iPhone, there might be a android version.

 

Thanks for that. Give me some idea when to set up the gear. 

[MarsG76]

Just now, Grotemobile said:

Thanks for that. Give me some idea when to set up the gear. 

Exactly.... "Gas Giant" allows you to plan for the Jupiter GRS times when facing us, check positions of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune moons too, so another great app for planning observation or imaging and determining whether those a moons or stars around planets.

[Stu]

Fantastic shots! It does look like things are subsiding a bit, but you've done really well to get so much detail!

Skysafari also shows the rotation of Jupiter and Mars, as well as moon positions and GRS visibility. Plenty of good apps out there. Two things to watch out for with Jupiter apps, firstly the light travel time needs to be included otherwise you can be 30 to 40 mins out. Secondly GRS does move so the position needs to be updated every now and then. Stellaroum can get caught out by this, you sometimes need to update the parameter in a .ini file to keep it accurate.

[newbie alert]

Wow..immense amount of detail there Mr mars..what sort of degrees altitude is mars in your location please?

 

[MarsG76]

5 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

Wow..immense amount of detail there Mr mars..what sort of degrees altitude is mars in your location please?

 

81°

[newbie alert]

33 minutes ago, MarsG76 said:

81°

Blimey!!

[MarsG76]

24 minutes ago, newbie alert said:

Blimey!!

Good year for us that's why there are so many detailed images coming from Australia and South America and Soutar hemisphere in general.

[JimothyC]

Thanks for the info, is it the IR channel that's giving you all the detail?

[MarsG76]

1 hour ago, JimothyC said:

Thanks for the info, is it the IR channel that's giving you all the detail?

The IR definitely helps, but it is only applied subtly... when I applied anything more than 20% of the IR channel, the image looked fake and over cooked.

[BRADLEY 1953]

Great images, particularly the latter.

[Pete Presland]

A couple of superb images, good to hear the dust is settling up there at last. I have not managed an image of Mars this year so far.

[paulastro]

Excellent images.

I do hope you're not getting a crick in your neck having to observe and image Mars at such a high altitude!  ?

[MarsG76]

1 minute ago, paulastro said:

Excellent images.

I do hope you're not getting a crick in your neck having to observe and image Mars at such a high altitude!  ?

No, of course not, diagonals are made to prevent such suffering.... ?