Observation by Chris Hooker: Mercury IR 10th June 2017

Uploaded by

Chris Hooker

Observer

Chris Hooker

Observed

2017 Jun 10 - 07:45

Uploaded

2017 Jun 13 - 20:52

Objects

Mercury

Equipment

25 cm Newtonian & x3 Barlow @ F/19
ZWO ASI120MM-S camera
Baader IR filter (685nm cut-on)

Exposure

0.346 msec (1/2890 sec)

Location

Didcot, Oxfordshire

Target name

Mercury

Title

Mercury IR 10th June 2017

About this image

Poor seeing (Ant III - IV) and a strong gusty breeze made for tricky conditions. Out of a total capture of around 80,000 frames of video, the final image is a stack of only 350 selected frames. This and the verification frames are noisy thanks to the small stack size, but the comparison with the reference image shows that the markings recorded do match those on the planet fairly well. Registration and stacking were done in Registax, with frame selection in VirtualDub. Thanks to Steve Knight for providing the reference image from Sky Safari.

The apparent difference in phase between the telescopic image and the reference is due to the strong brightness gradient in the image. Trying to brighten the terminator region to show the markings there leads to saturation on the bright limb, and reducing the gamma lowers the contrast on the disc. If anyone can suggest a way to improve the processing to bring out more detail I would be happy to hear from you.

Files associated with this observation

Slide2.PNG (129.6 kB)

Like this image

Bill Leatherbarrow, Jeremy Shears, Ron Johnson, Chris Dole, David Basey, Denis Buczynski, Martin Lewis, Graham Winstanley, Steve Knight, Nick Hewitt, Paul Anthony Brierley, Peter Carson

Comments

Martin Lewis, 2017 Jun 14 - 21:23 UTC

Another tremendous image Chris. Very well done.

I experimented with some techniques for Ganymede to bring out detail without overbrightening the limb and wonder if they might work with you Mercury images. if you want you can PM me at martin.rlewis@virgin.net and we can discuss more.

Cheers,

Martin

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