Mars with Olympus Mons & the Tharsis volcanoes - 31 October 2022

[geoflewis]

I had fairly good seeing last night for long runs on both Jupiter and Mars. Unfortunately, whilst the seeing was good, transparancy was changeable, with lots of passing low haze/fog, requiring constant gain adjustments to balance the histogram. Everything, was pretty drenched by the end of the session. Nevertheless, it was an enjoyable session, with the below 3 images from the better of the Mars runs. Each is best 30% of a 6 min SER (75k frames) at 5ms (200fps), captured with the ASI462MC through the C14, with an ADC in train.

Mars was at altidudes of 45° through 52° for these 3 captures. It is now displaying a 15" disc, with some good detail starting to come through. Olympus Mons is clearly seen, with the line of 3 shield volcanoes known as Tharsis Montes, just rotating towards the night time terminator.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Greymouser]

They are excellent! Makes me get an itchy trigger finger, regarding a dedicated camera, even though I only have a C9.25.

[neil phillips]

Lovely Geof the big C14 showings its resolution in bucket loads. 

[geoflewis]

7 minutes ago, Greymouser said:

They are excellent! Makes me get an itchy trigger finger, regarding a dedicated camera, even though I only have a C9.25.

3 minutes ago, neil phillips said:

Lovely Geof the big C14 showings its resolution in bucket loads. 

Thanks both, Mars is definitely begining to put on a show, hopefully with still better to come, though it doesn't get much bigger this apparition.

 

[orion25]

All hail to the mighty C14! Excellent images, Geof. Mars is really putting on a show and the best is yet to come!

Reggie

[geoflewis]

5 minutes ago, orion25 said:

All hail to the mighty C14! Excellent images, Geof. Mars is really putting on a show and the best is yet to come!

Reggie

Thanks Reggie, yes, fingers crossed that we get good seeing over the next few weeks...🤞

[Kon]

Excellent images! It seems the third image had the best seeing of the night.

[geoflewis]

Thanks Kon, yes possibly the best of the night, though I have 2 later runs that I need to process, with Mars at an even higher altitude, but through thickening haze. I included the earlier two images here, as they show the Tharsis Montes a bit better, well more prominently that is.

[JeremyS]

Truly splendid Geof 👍🏻

[geoflewis]

57 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Truly splendid Geof 👍🏻

Thanks Jeremy

[geoflewis]

I finished processing the Mars data, so here is a Mars rotation GIFF covering approximately 2h 20m elapsed time. There are eight separtae SER runs included, with some significant gaps between them early on, plus the usual hard to tame Mars edge rind in the earlier images, hence the rather jerky rotation.

In particular, I think the GIFF helps highlight the three Tharsis Montes volcanoes, as they disappeared into Mars night.

[Kon]

The animation has an almost like 3d effect on the volcanos. Great job!

[geoflewis]

29 minutes ago, Kon said:

The animation has an almost like 3d effect on the volcanos. Great job!

Thanks Kon, yes the aimation helps show the sunlit and shaded sides of Olympus Mons in particular, which does give a pleasing 3D effect.

[U Cyg]

Excellent images and animation!

Angie

 

[geoflewis]

20 minutes ago, U Cyg said:

Excellent images and animation!

Angie

Thanks Angie

[Space Cowboy]

Terrific detail on those Mars shots Geof! Love the animation!

[MarkRadice]

Beautiful images,. You must have been up early / stayed up late.

Really enjoyed this and looking forward to seeing more as we approach opposition (subject to better weather of course!). 

[geoflewis]

7 minutes ago, Space Cowboy said:

Terrific detail on those Mars shots Geof! Love the animation!

Thanks Stuart, I was in two minds about the animation, but as @Kon commented, it does give a 3D effect to the volcanoes.

[geoflewis]

4 minutes ago, MarkRadice said:

Beautiful images,. You must have been up early / stayed up late.

Really enjoyed this and looking forward to seeing more as we approach opposition (subject to better weather of course!). 

Thanks Mark. It was a long session starting with Jupiter around 7:30pm (I'm currently working on that data), then moved over to Mars once it gained a decent altitude. Seeing was mostly fair to good, but the variable transparancy made capture very tricky, especially with Jupiter at a lower elevation. Mars definetly got easier once it got up towards and beyond 50°, but then the fog piled in about an hour before it was due to transit, so that was game over. It is good to be back on GMT (UT), as everything is now happening an hour earlier......, just need my body clock to adjust.....🙄.

[geoflewis]

Trying to extract a bit more detail from my later Mars data, I combined the final 3 stacks with de-rotation in WinJupos followed by a tad more wavelet sharpening in Registax. I shared a few version back and forth with @neil phillips this pm and had a long chat with him about a bunch of planetary imaging related stuff. As many already know, Neil is a great guy, very knowledgable and equally willing to share his knowledge and experience (thanks Neil). The edge rind on Mars is very problematic, proving especially so when combinging several stacks, so I had to use a healing brush, to disguise the worst of it. Anway, this is where I ended up, so will be interested to hear what others think.

[Kon]

1 hour ago, geoflewis said:

Trying to extract a bit more detail from my later Mars data, I combined the final 3 stacks with de-rotation in WinJupos followed by a tad more wavelet sharpening in Registax. I shared a few version back and forth with @neil phillips this pm and had a long chat with him about a bunch of planetary imaging related stuff. As many already know, Neil is a great guy, very knowledgable and equally willing to share his knowledge and experience (thanks Neil). The edge rind on Mars is very problematic, proving especially so when combinging several stacks, so I had to use a healing brush, to disguise the worst of it. Anway, this is where I ended up, so will be interested to hear what others think.

 

You are in good hands with Neil. I really value his advice as well. To be perfectly honest and in my eyes, adding all the data together has not brought out more features. Your original last image has as many details as this one I reckon. That's with my limited experience.

The new workflow on the edge rind, has made it look very nice and smooth.

[neil phillips]

1 hour ago, geoflewis said:

Trying to extract a bit more detail from my later Mars data, I combined the final 3 stacks with de-rotation in WinJupos followed by a tad more wavelet sharpening in Registax. I shared a few version back and forth with @neil phillips this pm and had a long chat with him about a bunch of planetary imaging related stuff. As many already know, Neil is a great guy, very knowledgable and equally willing to share his knowledge and experience (thanks Neil). The edge rind on Mars is very problematic, proving especially so when combinging several stacks, so I had to use a healing brush, to disguise the worst of it. Anway, this is where I ended up, so will be interested to hear what others think.

It was a great chat Geof. I have a feeling better will be coming in the next 3 or 4 weeks. But it's a lovely Mars so far. You certainly have this winjupos tech down to a tee now.

[neil phillips]

1 hour ago, Kon said:

You are in good hands with Neil. I really value his advice as well. To be perfectly honest and in my eyes, adding all the data together has not brought out more features. Your original last image has as many details as this one I reckon. That's with my limited experience.

The new workflow on the edge rind, has made it look very nice and smooth.

Your honesty is worthwhile Kon. We discussed this today. Geof actually said to me any gain has been minimal. So, i haven't done a direct comparison (Careful side by side) Though i did look briefly But your eyes are good. So i reckon your probably right. Also he held back on sharpening somewhat to prevent a unnatural balance which also probably is playing its part Can't speak for Geof of course

Edited November 2, 2022 by neil phillips

[Sunshine]

Amazing images!

[geoflewis]

1 hour ago, Kon said:

You are in good hands with Neil. I really value his advice as well. To be perfectly honest and in my eyes, adding all the data together has not brought out more features. Your original last image has as many details as this one I reckon. That's with my limited experience.

The new workflow on the edge rind, has made it look very nice and smooth.

Thanks Kon, I think I agree, but I keep trying for that extra 1%.....🙄🤔