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Early Morning Planets (Nov 10)

brianb

By brianb
in Imaging - Planetary

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brianb

brianb

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Morning of Nov 10 had broken cloud but surprisingly steady seeing - not good but moderate; given the nearby jet stream this was a lot better than I expected. In twilight I imaged the Moon (see other thread) and the three bright planets which were visible.

My first Saturn of the season: the planet was fairly low so I imaged at prime focus. The rings are still nearly edge on and illuminated at a very shallow angle following the Saturnian equinox in September, so were unusually faint.

Saturn-091110-0656-RGBX1.jpg

2009 Nov 11, 0656 UT. CPC1100, prime focus, Astronomik RGB type 2c colour seperation filters, Imaging Source DMK41 camera.

Venus is near superior conjunction & therefore a small almost circular blob. This image is the same scale as the Saturn image above.

Venus-091110-0803-IX1.jpg

2009 Nov 11, 0803 UT. CPC1100, prime focus, Astronomik Planet Pro 742 infra-red pass filter, Imaging Source DMK41 camera.

Finally, Mars ... still quite small but well placed, in fact it's past the meridian before dawn starts to brighten the sky. I was able to use a 2x barlow to increase the size of the 8 arc second disk.

Mars-091110-0826-LRGBX2.jpg

2009 Nov 11, 0826 UT. CPC1100, x2 Barlow, Astronomik RGB type 2c colour seperation filters, Planet Pro 742 for luminance, Imaging Source DMK41 camera. CM 179 degrees.

This is the "boring" side of Mars ... nevertheless some dark markings are visible as well as the north polar cap and Mare Australe / Mare Chronium in the south (Australe Planum & Chronium Planum for those of you who use the new names). I think the diagonal streak nearer the limb is Phlegra & Cerberus; not sure what the fainter diagonal streak near the meridian is; can anyone help with identification?

For those of you with light pollution problems ... you may think you've got it bad, but please note that the Venus & Mars images were made in the presence of the ultimate in light pollution - the Sun was shining! Mars was still visible in the 8x50 finder, and the view through the main scope was the best I've had for some years; the bright background reduced the glare, making disk details easier to see.

This morning (Nov 11) the sky conditions were similar to the naked eye to yesterday but the seeing was very different - severe jet stream smearing meant that Mars was just a blob, imaging was pointless.

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tinvek

tinvek

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interesting your comment about mars this morning being less clear, when i came home at aprox 6.30 i sneaked a look and it wasn't as clear as on monday morning despite the sky being a lot clearer than monday's misty sky

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brianb

brianb

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you should get up early more often

Well it was raining in the evening - the weather forecast predicted a clearance from around 3am so I turned it with the alarm set. At 3am it was showing signs of starting to break but wasn't any use yet so I gave myself another 45 mins.

If the weather had been clear I would still have been up at 8am....

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brianb

brianb

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Please try again - the site I dump images on may have had a problem.

Incidentally, for anyone who doubts the advantage that aperture brings with it, here's an image I made the next morning with my William Optics 110mm fluorite triplet achromat and a 4x barlow (f/31.4) with the same camera and a similar processing technique:

Mars-091111-0607-RGB-FLTX4.jpg

2009 Nov 11, 0607 UT. CM 135

The north polar cap and dark "seas" around the south pole are remarkably clear but the dark markings on the disc are really indistinct. I'm not at all sure about the vertical "canal" which can just be made out near the meridian, I feel it may well be a processing artifact.

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AztecastroMcJ

AztecastroMcJ

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Great shots Brian

been viewing Mars alot myself recently gud to see quality pic

was out myself this same early morning or possibly day before

seen saturn n venus rising with naked eye only due to houses blocking scopes view so again gud to see pics

i settled for just few moon avi's so understand effort used to get these

gud night well worth it

James

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