Mars - Suggestions for improving

[Andy08]

Hi

I have been getting advise from these forums for a while but never posted anything. I have viewing for around a year and now just started trying my hand at imaging. 

The picture below was taken on the 6th Oct using a Astromaster 70mm (not the best I know but all I can afford at moment and only been in the hobby a year).

A 2 minute video was recorded using Firecapture with a CCD and then processed with PIPP and stacked using AutoStakker. 

I did use a 0.5 focual reducer on the CCD this time to help with tracking, would removing this help? My mount is a manual EQ. Would allowing the object to drift from left to right and then adjusting it back to left many times to increase video length work? Or would the sudden movement cause stacking issues?

 

Thanks for any help

Andy

 

 

 

Edited October 9, 2020 by Andy08
changed image to jpeg

[Cornelius Varley]

@Andy08 Hello and welcome to SGL. Could you upload the image as either a jpg or .png file ? The image can then be viewed in the browser rather than having to download it and be viewed externally.

[Andy08]

thanks Peter, I was trying to do that but kept failing. looks like its worked now 🙂

[chrisund123]

@Andy08

I managed this with an Astromaster 130, 2x Barlow, and Xbox 360 webcam:

 

The avi was about 3 mins long, I let the image drift over the screen then adjusted it back every few seconds. Went straight into AutoStakkert, 50% of the best frames, then sharpened in Registax.

 

This is my first decent image of Mars, and it's worth noting that I've not managed to get one this good since. I've now got some better equipment, but naturally it's been cloudy and not had the chance to give a test yet.

[Andy08]

Thanks for this. I think I need to have another go without the 0.5 reducer. 

Good to know moving object back into frame in a large movement is ok to do

Edited October 9, 2020 by Andy08

[happy-kat]

The stacking process should be selecting the best frames for you so wobbly ones aren't used.

Registax is great at final image wavelet sharpening, though I think there may be too few pixels to work with that cover Mars on the image shared.

Does your camera support ROI (region of interest) when capturing?

You could try a barlow, as a focal reducer will have the opposite effect and make the planet even smaller so whilst you track it for longer on one drift the planet is falling on less of the camera sensor.