Mars - 16 December 2022

[geoflewis]

I headed out into the cold again earlier this evening for another run at Mars. My initial impressions were that the seeing was similar to the previous night, so I captured a few 6 min SERs instead of 3 mins, so that I would be able to grab a higher number of better frames without having to join them in PIPP. It turned out that the captures were easier to process, so here are a couple of images, the first being best 30k frames from a single SER, the 2nd being 30k frames for 2 consecutive SERs de-rotated in WinJupos so 60k frames in total. WJ measuement corrects the N/S orientation, hence the slight position angle difference.

Anyone have a preference one over the other?

Edited December 17, 2022 by geoflewis

[markse68]

Very nice Geoff! I think the seeing form here in London at least is stunning tonight and you have some really nice detail there so must be there too. Interesting the ice cap/clouds match what I thought I was seeing- it must be an optical illusion I think but the brighter white part to the right of your image seems to bulge slightly from the disk! Oh I prefr the RH one- seems clearer

Mark

Edited December 17, 2022 by markse68

[geoflewis]

7 hours ago, markse68 said:

Very nice Geoff! I think the seeing form here in London at least is stunning tonight and you have some really nice detail there so must be there too. Interesting the ice cap/clouds match what I thought I was seeing- it must be an optical illusion I think but the brighter white part to the right of your image seems to bulge slightly from the disk! Oh I prefr the RH one- seems clearer

Mark

Thanks Mark. Yes, the seeing was pretty good, but the image was still frothing on screen, so I was surprised how well the data processed. I think the fast 3ms (330 fps) froze the good frames, allowing me to get this result. I too see that bulge in the polar hood, it may be cloud above the pole. The entire hood is really bright, almost burnt out, despite me running a lower gain than I was earlier in the week. There is also a small peak at the limb in the south west (5 o’clock position), so not sure what that is.

Thanks also the feedback on the RH/2nd image looking clearer to you - it justifies the extra work of de-rotating and stacking the 2 images.

[Kon]

Nice capture and I admire your dedication under the conditions. What an improvement from yesterday. Both look great with a slight preference for the second one. I noticed that the polar hood whites are 'burned' at least on my screen. And some colour noise creeping on both?

[geoflewis]

8 minutes ago, Kon said:

Nice capture and I admire your dedication under the conditions. What an improvement from yesterday. Both look great with a slight preference for the second one. I noticed that the polar hood whites are 'burned' at least on my screen. And some colour noise creeping on both?

Thanks Kostas, yes, the polar hood is really bright and burnt out. I didn’t notice the colour noise, but I was processing it fairly late last night, so I’ll take another look today and maybe dial it back a bit. I used the same wavelets settings as my revision from 12 Dec, but maybe that is too strong for last nights data. Tricky isn’t it - not enough, too much…. 🤔

[Kon]

33 minutes ago, geoflewis said:

Thanks Kostas, yes, the polar hood is really bright and burnt out. I didn’t notice the colour noise, but I was processing it fairly late last night, so I’ll take another look today and maybe dial it back a bit. I used the same wavelets settings as my revision from 12 Dec, but maybe that is too strong for last nights data. Tricky isn’t it - not enough, too much…. 🤔

I think it's what Neil calls prism effect. I don't see other noise and wavelets/sharpening look good. In the end of the day we don't need to please everyone as we all have different ways and preferences. Still an excellent image.

[JeremyS]

Stunning detail, Geof.

I marginally prefer the 2nd

[geoflewis]

Here's a revision of the 2nd (WJ stacked) version. I actually reprocessed both images before de-rotating in WJ, dialling back the sharpening to try to hold back the burnt out polar hood, whilst not losing too much detail in the surface detail.

Please let me know what you think of this one.

[geoflewis]

1 hour ago, JeremyS said:

Stunning detail, Geof.

I marginally prefer the 2nd

Thanks Jeremy. After feedback from @Kon, I've reprocessed the data and uploaded a revised de-rotated stack, which hopefully is an improvement.

[JeremyS]

35 minutes ago, geoflewis said:

Thanks Jeremy. After feedback from @Kon, I've reprocessed the data and uploaded a revised de-rotated stack, which hopefully is an improvement.

Looks super, Geof 👍🏻

[Kon]

41 minutes ago, geoflewis said:

Here's a revision of the 2nd (WJ stacked) version. I actually reprocessed both images before de-rotating in WJ, dialling back the sharpening to try to hold back the burnt out polar hood, whilst not losing too much detail in the surface detail.

Please let me know what you think of this one.

Excellent!! Polar hood is showing nice structure now and you have nicely maintained the overall details.

[geoflewis]

11 minutes ago, JeremyS said:

Looks super, Geof 👍🏻

9 minutes ago, Kon said:

Excellent!! Polar hood is showing nice structure now and you have nicely maintained the overall details.

Thanks both, it definitely needed the revision; I'm much more pleased with the appearance of the polar hood now.

 

[Space Cowboy]

Super detail once again Geof! Repro much better though still slighlty burnt on the hood?

[geoflewis]

1 minute ago, Space Cowboy said:

Super detail once again Geof! Repro much better though still slighlty burnt on the hood?

Yes, I think you're right. It was a tricky one, I dialled it right back, but started to lose more detail than I was happy with, so wound it back up a bit. It would be good if Registax allowed selective application of wavelets. I might take another look, though I'm pretty content where I got it to....

[Elp]

These planetary images by the usual suspects are on another level. Hats off to the dedication.

[CraigT82]

Really nice work Geof loads of surface detail on show 

[geoflewis]

Just now, CraigT82 said:

Really nice work Geof loads of surface detail on show 

Thanks Craig