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Humble Mars


JohnSadlerAstro

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Hi,

I was out looking for planets last night, been away for a week so I wanted to find out how the dust was settling. I was impressed by the view through my 90mm frac, clear dark patch in the centre and the hint of smaller details as well as a quite-clear polar cap.

Put in the ASI 120 camera, and wow. It's a big improvement over last time, with the duststorm going. My only worry is the colour balance. I'm dreadful at getting colours right in things, and people always say my Marses are too green. Does this look green, or is it ok?

I can see the polar cap, some clouds on both limbs, particularly bright ones on the left hand side. Unfortunately the SW 2x Barlow (yes that free abomination which is supplied with the 130m, etc) has stuck a lot of CA right on top of them. On the upper right, though they seem quite clear. 

Mars22.jpg.6b3bb1817774137e408cac9c21b3a6ab.jpgMars22.jpg.34a6f3cf53abd911d129bcdbd32dca87.jpg

Overall I'm quite pleased with the result, it's nothing compared to most here on SGL, but hey its only a 90mm achro with the cheapest ZWO cam slapped on and freebie barlow! :D 

Anybody else out last night? What did you get?

EDIT: I've adjusted the colour to remove the CA tints on the clouds, it looks a bit cleaner now I think. Version on the right is corrected.

John

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A fine result, particularly from a small aperture scope.  Since earlier in the month, I have recorded some surface detail each time I image, but the seeing has been awful so I can't get a sharp image. Last night, stars at higher altitude were going twinkle twinkle. 

Since you mention it, yours does look a bit yellow/green on the left hand edge. ?

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5 hours ago, Sunshine said:

Better than the shot I got from my 150 last week! 

It's  worth trying again, I think the dust is clearing quickly, probably mostly gone by now. :) 

I do have it rather easy because I live near the Southern end of a housing estate, so there is mostly countryside to the South. There are occasional bad seeing patches over chimneys, though! :D 

John

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Thank you for the kind comments and encouragement, folks!

I would recommend the OpticStar AR90S to anyone if they are looking for a good quality but cheap (ish) scope. Although its doublet achro, its performance is more semi-apo, solid construction, carry bag, etc, and as you can see it can pick up quite good detail for its size on Mars. I haven't tried it out much on Deep Sky, but at f8.8 it shouldn't be too slow!

John

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