Mars a day after opposition (9/12/22)

[Kon]

The seeing was decent last night. Again Mars was hard to focus despite the lack of jetstream and the frozen atmosphere. I think this is probably my best Mars capture this year. I did an experiment, inspired from Geof's @geoflewis post yesterday. I run my captures back to back with either 3ms or 6ms exposures (300 vs 160fps). I agree with Geof that the sorter exposure is giving better results, more details and I noticed some clouds developing in the Southern part (around 7-8 o'clock); in my case, I stacked more frames from the 3ms exposure as a result of the higher fps. I still want to try derotate some of my captures, it can wait for cloudy nights. Usual setup of 8" Dob, manual, asi462mc, 2.5x TV powermate. First one is 3ms and second at 5ms. The last two are 3ms and 5ms but resized 150%.

 

 

 

[dweller25]

Brilliant 👍

[geoflewis]

These are superb Kostas, really excellent. I'm glad the experiment at faster capture worked for you. I had my doubts about it, but @neil phillips kept telling me, so eventually I tried it and he was right .  I didn't go out last night, due to extra time and penalties, then it was cloudy here. Not sure I'll try tonight either, but we'll shall see.....🤔

[Kon]

2 minutes ago, geoflewis said:

These are superb Kostas, really excellent. I'm glad the experiment at faster capture worked for you. I had my doubts about it, but @neil phillips kept telling me, so eventually I tried it and he was right .  I didn't go out last night, due to extra time and penalties, then it was cloudy here. Not sure I'll try tonight either, but we'll shall see.....🤔

Thanks, it was nice to get these captures. Good game last night, although refereeing was awful. Back to topic, I initially had my doubts about the sorter exposure as the signal to noise is probably worse, I had a brief chat with Neil @neil phillipsabout it a few weeks ago, but the benefit is double as yes you do freeze the bad seeing but also more frames on the stack. In your experiment did you use same amount of frames or did you go for the best % of total?

Glad it verified both of us. And Neil's advice was spot on again!

I am not going out tonight, my body needs a break from the cold plus football is on.

[geoflewis]

17 minutes ago, Kon said:

In your experiment did you use same amount of frames or did you go for the best % of total?

I went for best %, so yes, in theory more frames in the stack, though of course I dropped the capture duration from 6 mins to 3 mins due to cloud, so probably similar over all. The final image has ~53,000 frames.

[Space Cowboy]

Very good detail Kostas!

[PeterStudz]

Fantastic images @Kon! When I started I did not realise something like this was possible. Almost makes me want to give it a go as I also have a 200p. Maybe next year on the likes of Jupiter and Saturn. We’ll see. At the moment I’m really enjoying observing.

Out of interest I was looking at Mars on the same night and into the early hours of the 10th Dec. Seeing was better than the night of opposition. But like you I still found it difficult to focus. I also noticed that given the cold my 200p took a good hour to cool down and give a stable image. Although the ample dew shield I was using might have played a part.

I got the best views just before and just after mid-night. After that it did start to degrade slightly. Your images are close to what I was seeing, but they are obviously sharper and with far more contrast. Still, I could make out some clouds (7-8 o’clock) just like on your images. I couldn’t see these on opposition night.

I also tried hard to see if I could possibly eyeball any hint of Olympus Mons. I couldn’t - a tall ask at the best of times but you never know. 

[Kon]

5 hours ago, Space Cowboy said:

Very good detail Kostas!

Thanks Stuart. I have to say again that little video you sent me is tremendously helpful!

[Kon]

5 hours ago, PeterStudz said:

Fantastic images @Kon! When I started I did not realise something like this was possible. Almost makes me want to give it a go as I also have a 200p. Maybe next year on the likes of Jupiter and Saturn. We’ll see. At the moment I’m really enjoying observing.

Out of interest I was looking at Mars on the same night and into the early hours of the 10th Dec. Seeing was better than the night of opposition. But like you I still found it difficult to focus. I also noticed that given the cold my 200p took a good hour to cool down and give a stable image. Although the ample dew shield I was using might have played a part.

I got the best views just before and just after mid-night. After that it did start to degrade slightly. Your images are close to what I was seeing, but they are obviously sharper and with far more contrast. Still, I could make out some clouds (7-8 o’clock) just like on your images. I couldn’t see these on opposition night.

I also tried hard to see if I could possibly eyeball any hint of Olympus Mons. I couldn’t - a tall ask at the best of times but you never know. 

Thanks Peter. Somehow seeing has been awful but last night it was better.

Yes the 200P even on manual tracking is extremely capable as long as you are patient and understand the limitations we have but with your platform you should be able to get a lot better images than me. I remember that you did not have a computer, so if you decide to go down that route you will need one.

I feel that the planetary photography has recently taken me away from observing but I plan to take a break after Mars and enjoy the winter nebulas.

[JeremyS]

Excellent 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

[neil phillips]

18 hours ago, Kon said:

The seeing was decent last night. Again Mars was hard to focus despite the lack of jetstream and the frozen atmosphere. I think this is probably my best Mars capture this year. I did an experiment, inspired from Geof's @geoflewis post yesterday. I run my captures back to back with either 3ms or 6ms exposures (300 vs 160fps). I agree with Geof that the sorter exposure is giving better results, more details and I noticed some clouds developing in the Southern part (around 7-8 o'clock); in my case, I stacked more frames from the 3ms exposure as a result of the higher fps. I still want to try derotate some of my captures, it can wait for cloudy nights. Usual setup of 8" Dob, manual, asi462mc, 2.5x TV powermate. First one is 3ms and second at 5ms. The last two are 3ms and 5ms but resized 150%.

 

 

 

Very nice kon. cutting back capture time. Will have a de smearing effect. But of course that's what winjupos is for. Its tempting to cut back especially with the larger frame count afforded by shorter exposures. But de rotated a higher frame count from longer captures, and larger stack size (assuming a stable consistent run) will enable stronger harder sharpening on programs like Astro surface.

So unless de rotation is inferiour it should enable the best results. So longer captures de rotated higher frame stacks will require stronger sharpening to see any benefit.

But its tempting to just run shorter sers with a higher frame count and shorter exposure because it will give you a instant bang. No rotation smear. No messing about.

Its just The hassle of de rotation and higher frame count. Larger stack size. Stronger sharpening. Should in theory pull even more detail out. But 6 min sers ideally should be de rotated. The downside of de rotation and stronger sharpening will often create more edge rind. So different considerations for different outcomes perhaps

[chiltonstar]

Nice detail. Certainly with my 180 mm scope, the shortest frame times  seem to give me a better result with my limited skills, for example.

Chris

 

[Kon]

3 hours ago, neil phillips said:

Very nice kon. cutting back capture time. Will have a de smearing effect. But of course that's what winjupos is for. Its tempting to cut back especially with the larger frame count afforded by shorter exposures. But de rotated a higher frame count from longer captures, and larger stack size (assuming a stable consistent run) will enable stronger harder sharpening on programs like Astro surface.

So unless de rotation is inferiour it should enable the best results. So longer captures de rotated higher frame stacks will require stronger sharpening to see any benefit.

But its tempting to just run shorter sers with a higher frame count and shorter exposure because it will give you a instant bang. No rotation smear. No messing about.

Its just The hassle of de rotation and higher frame count. Larger stack size. Stronger sharpening. Should in theory pull even more detail out. But 6 min sers ideally should be de rotated. The downside of de rotation and stronger sharpening will often create more edge rind. So different considerations for different outcomes perhaps

Thanks for the further clarifications. In my hands, I find that derotation is giving me less of an improvement and more noisy sharpening. The best Jupiter I have are from 3ms exposures so it seems to be a sweet spot for our UK seeing. I tried to go to 1ms but the seeing wasn't of the same quality so it would be an unfair comparison. Although I am fun of Astrosurface sharpening I tend to over do it. These have not been sharpened there.

As I keep telling myself, unless I can see details during capture, there is no way to make a good image from a subpar capture. I abandoned my captures last night based on that.

[Kon]

3 hours ago, chiltonstar said:

Nice detail. Certainly with my 180 mm scope, the shortest frame times  seem to give me a better result with my limited skills, for example.

Chris

 

Nice image Chris. Great details coming through. What exposure were you doing?

[chiltonstar]

10 minutes ago, Kon said:

Nice image Chris. Great details coming through. What exposure were you doing?

These were 5ms, which is certainly sharper for me than 10ms (6000 frames at 5ms, cpd with 3000 at 10ms). I tend to get noisier images with Winjupos.

Chris

[Kon]

1 hour ago, chiltonstar said:

These were 5ms, which is certainly sharper for me than 10ms (6000 frames at 5ms, cpd with 3000 at 10ms). I tend to get noisier images with Winjupos.

Chris

Worth giving it a try with a bit less and see if that helps. Similar to what Neil commented above. 

[PeterStudz]

19 hours ago, Kon said:

Thanks Peter. Somehow seeing has been awful but last night it was better.

Yes the 200P even on manual tracking is extremely capable as long as you are patient and understand the limitations we have but with your platform you should be able to get a lot better images than me. I remember that you did not have a computer, so if you decide to go down that route you will need one.

I feel that the planetary photography has recently taken me away from observing but I plan to take a break after Mars and enjoy the winter nebulas.

Yes, I don’t own a “computer” at the moment. Just a phone & iPad. I use to work in IT but took voluntary redundancy some years ago and decided to have a total break from the damn things! 

However, my daughter would find it useful to have one especially as she gets older and for school. So that’ll be an excuse! I also have a possible idea where I can do the bulk of the imaging and she can to the bulk of processing. That’s if she wants to and if it works. She really likes and is good at drawing, video and media creation on the iPad and has started to dabble with programming. Anyway, it’s just an idea.

I really do enjoy sitting outside and doing simple observations. Using Mars as an example (first year on Mars for me). It’s been fascinating and rewarding watching it from not much more than a dot in the summer (way back in June I think) to now. interestingly, with the occasional good seeing back in the summer I could see just as much, maybe actually more, than recently when it’s been near/at opposition.

But it would be nice to have some images to go along with what I’ve seen. 

[chiltonstar]

Good for you Peter, Mars is glorious with the naked eye!

Chris