Mars (IR-RGB) 22 September 2020

[geoflewis]

I had another session on Mars with good seeing early morning Tuesday (22nd), perhaps not quite as good as Sunday (20th) morning, but the final image with blue clouds on show is very pleasing.

The image is an IR-RGB image, but with the RGB data very good, I added just 10% of the IR stack just to tease out a bit more detail. Adding the R stack gave a very similar level of detail, but even at 40% it took a tad too much away from the lovely clouds. Each of the 4 IRRGB AVIs were selected as best 30% in AS3!, wavelet sharpened in Registax6, then de-rotated in WinJupos, with a further mild wavelet sharpening of the IR-RGB stack in R6, before final tweaks and annotation added in Affinity Photo.

The image is displayed south up. The Argyre impact basin surrounded by rugged massifs, which form concentric and radial patterns, may be seen below and to the right of the south polar cap. The darker regions straddling the equator (left to right) of Sinus Sabaeus, Sinus Meridiani, Margaritifer Sinus and Aurorae Sinus can be seen above the lighter red Aeria & Chryse regions. Clouds are visible above the north pole region and towards the Mars limb at the right of the image.

Thanks for looking.

 

[si@nite]

Another great image Geof, some superb detail captured!

[geoflewis]

9 minutes ago, si@nite said:

Another great image Geof, some superb detail captured!

Thanks Simon. It was a fun couple of nights this past weekend and Monday/Tuesday night. I'm very pleased to get a couple of good ones in the can.

[Stargazer33]

Lovely level of detail Geof! Nice write-up too.

[geoflewis]

20 minutes ago, Stargazer33 said:

Lovely level of detail Geof! Nice write-up too.

Thanks Bryan.

[tooth_dr]

Stunning image Geoff. 

[morimarty]

There is some stunning detail / resolution in that image Geof. You have processed it very well as IR is not the easiest data to deal with.

[geoflewis]

23 minutes ago, tooth_dr said:

Stunning image Geoff. 

18 minutes ago, morimarty said:

There is some stunning detail / resolution in that image Geof. You have processed it very well as IR is not the easiest data to deal with.

Thanks Adam and Martyn.

Martyn, I tried several luminance + RGB combinations, before settling on the 10% IR. Actually the RGB on it's own was good, but a little extra detail goes a long way. I'd prefer to use the R as luminance, but need a higher % to materially enhance the detail and at even 40% R I started to see a reduction in the clouds, especially those very subtle ones near the limb. It was not a lot, but by 70% R it was quite noticeable. 20% IR was too much, but 10% worked pretty well, hence the final result.

 

[JeremyS]

Nice job @geoflewis!

[callisto]

Some fantastic detail in that image 

 

Mark

[geoflewis]

21 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Nice job @geoflewis!

21 minutes ago, callisto said:

Some fantastic detail in that image 

Mark

Thanks Jeremy and Mark

 

[7170]

@geoflewis very nice image Geof! Out of interest how long will Mars stay in the center of the sensor FOV using the TVx2PM on your AP mount with the C14? In theory a good amount of time I suspect, but i'm interested to know how things shape up in the real world. 

[astroman001]

Great image Geoff.

Peter

[geoflewis]

20 hours ago, 7170 said:

@geoflewis very nice image Geof! Out of interest how long will Mars stay in the center of the sensor FOV using the TVx2PM on your AP mount with the C14? In theory a good amount of time I suspect, but i'm interested to know how things shape up in the real world. 

Thanks James,

Sorry for my tardy reply. Actually with the ROI of 600x600px and the cut out region of 400x400px that I use, not very long. Since I don't have an electronic filter wheel, I need to sit by the mount to change the filter every 3 minutes, so I just use the hand controller at it's slowest slew rate, to gently nudge the mount throughout the capture to keep Mars centred - that's maybe a gentle nudge every 30 secs or so, not that all of those are necessary, but l think lots of small adjustments are probably better than fewer large ones. I suspect the target would stay within the 600x600px ROI for the full 3 minutes of each capture, but not much longer. Of course I could connect the mount to the laptop and auto guide from within FireCapture, but since nothing else is automated I haven't bothered to try it. If I were to use the full sensor rather than ROI then the AP mount would probably hold the target on chip for much of an hour long session (or at least close), but at a reduced frame rate, which would be crazy as most of it is black sky.

Hope that helps.

[geoflewis]

35 minutes ago, astroman001 said:

Great image Geoff.

Peter

Thanks Peter

[Peart]

Fantastic image

 

[Pete Presland]

Fabulous image, an excellent level of detail on show there.

[geoflewis]

25 minutes ago, Pete Presland said:

Fabulous image, an excellent level of detail on show there.

Thanks Pete

[geoflewis]

Seeing other folks post superb animations, I thought I see if I could produce one from my Mars data, so here it is as forward and back rotation, covering approx 1 hour elapsed time......

 

Edited September 26, 2020 by geoflewis

[jock1958]

Excellent Geoff and lots of detail. Was just about to head outside but the clouds have rolled over 😩

Edited September 26, 2020 by jock1958

[geoflewis]

7 minutes ago, jock1958 said:

Excellent Geoff and lots of detail. Was just about to head outside but the clouds have rolled over 😩

Thanks, it took lots of iterations learning how to do this, but it was good fun, for an otherwise slow grey day....

[AbsolutelyN]

Love the animation with such a huge amount of detail!

[geoflewis]

2 minutes ago, AbsolutelyN said:

Love the animation with such a huge amount of detail!

Many thanks

[Hawksmoor]

Wonderful detail and an explanatory write up. An all round top post.

[kirkster501]

Great work Geof!