5" refractor Mars.....

[Kokatha man]

Hi all, haven't posted much as I tinker with lots of jobs (mostly astro-related!) but after the Jupiter season things have been quiet for me re planetary imaging.....

Have never imaged Mars before and took a first-up of Mars from home a couple of weeks back.....but went bush for a few days in the van and took the little 5" Chinese apo triplet i bought direct from the manufacturers in China a couple of months back.

These are made in Nangjing and cost less than $US1000 direct (ordered on Thursday about 3.30pm and had it in my hands the following Tuesday - pretty good imho!)

They feature a 127mm ED triplet objective and are evidently rebadged as Meades and Prostars etc and sold for up to 3X the price I paid.....bought it for DSO imaging, of which I've seen some nice examples thereof.....

Image taken with the DBK in average seeing - but I'd say the transparency was pretty good out there.....unfortunately Mars is only a tad over 30 degrees in elevation for us Downunder so it is a difficult target in a 5" refractor, even at 7X the f/l.....and manual focus for an image that size is an exercise in masochism....!

But for all that I'm rather pleased with its performance first-up.....I'm waiting for a Moonlite focusser for the C11 (my planetary imager) and when it and a couple of other mods are installed on the SCT I look forwards to some (relatively) decent imaging of Mars around opposition....!

[philj]

Excellent image, I havent tried mine yet on planetary due topoor weather and low elevation but after seeing this I shall definately try Mars

philj

[beamish]

Cracker !!!!

well done look fwd to seeing more.

[Clayton]

Stunning image KM

[johnh]

Detail is very sharp for a 5" frac and colour very rich. JohnH.

[geoff_k]

That is indeed very good for a five inch refractor. The more images I see taken with them makes me wish Santa was bringing one on his sleigh.

More please.

Geoff

[LukeSkywatcher]

Next clear night i get i'm gonna go hunt Mars with my new 5" scope. Inspirational image.

[Taff]

That's a very nice image of the planet, nice details.Mark

[astroman001]

Good detail and contrast with 5" refractor. Well done.

Peter

[Kokatha man]

Thanks all for the comments.....I forgot to mention that the overly-rich colour was a result of not using the "one push" colour balance before capture in IC Capture.....I used allways to rely on "auto" but only recently did I notice that "one push" often resulted in a much better colour rendering imho.....

Have nearly finished my "active cooling" unit (which I'll post in the DIY section soon) and I have done some in-depth logging and graphing of mirror temperatures versus ambient air temps.....perhaps more relevant to the Australian climate/conditions but interesting nonetheless.....

Speaking of things Oz I see arad jibing Rob (clayton) about "cheating" re some of the Jupiter imaging opportunities this last opposition re its elevation here.....well, with Mars only a tad over 30 degrees elevation the boot is well and truly on the other foot now - with you good folks in the driving seat - so start showing us your hi-res Mars images....!

But as I said, all in all I was pleased with this first-up Mars from the 127mm apo triplet.....having pulled the C11 out for some attempted imaging in atrocious seeing conditions these last 2 nights I at least know that with a night (or even a half hour please....? - where's the grovel/praying smiley symbol?!?) of decent seeing I might get something worthwhile.....

Although the little apo was great at 7.7X I get over twice the image scalesize I had to work with then in the C11 with a 2X barlow operating at about 3X.....I'll be taking the C11 bush like I did for this Mars with the 5" apo to maximise transparency and seeing aroud opposition....!

[JAO]

This is an excellent image revealing a lot of detail, thanks for sharing

Adrian