Observation by Chris Hooker: Mercury on 7th August 2020

Uploaded by

Chris Hooker

Observer

Chris Hooker

Observed

2020 Aug 07 - 06:15

Uploaded

2020 Aug 08 - 11:03

Objects

Mercury

Equipment

254 mm Newtonian
5x Powermate
Baader 610 nm & IR-cut filters
ZWO ASI174MM camera

Exposure

0.45 ms @ F/32

Location

Didcot, Oxfordshire

Target name

Mercury

Title

Mercury on 7th August 2020

About this image

Mercury imaged early in the day during a short window of excellent seeing: Antoniadi II or better for about 15 minutes. Thanks to the high frame rate of the ASI174 camera I was able to capture a dozen video sequences before the seeing started to degrade, with a total of 120,000 frames. The percentage of good frames in a few of the videos was around 10%, which is exceptional for Mercury, and I was able to process the image entirely in software (PIPP, Autostakkert!3 and Registax 5) without having to resort to selecting frames by eye. The result shows a considerable amount of detail in the albedo features, and the resolution of the image is essentially at the limit imposed by the telescope, of around 0.4 arc seconds.

This is one of the best images of Mercury I have ever obtained, and provides a good demonstration of the fact that seeing is all-important in planetary imaging.

Files associated with this observation

Mercury 7 August 20 v2.png (270.0 kB)

Like this image

David Basey, Philip Masding, Peter Mulligan, Jeremy Shears, Chris Dole, Bill Leatherbarrow, Ron Johnson, Steve Knight

Comments

Philip Masding, 2020 Aug 08 - 13:02 UTC

Very impressive Chris.

Chris Hooker, 2020 Aug 08 - 16:24 UTC

Glad you like the image, Phil. I don't get such good seeing very often when imaging Mercury in daytime, but it's a nice surprise when it happens.

Cheers,

Chris

Copyright of all images and other observations submitted to the BAA remains with the owner of the work. Reproduction of work by third parties is expressly forbidden without the consent of the copyright holder. By submitting images to this online gallery, you grant the BAA permission to reproduce them in any of our publications.

Registered charity no. 210769
Registered company no. 117572

For more information including contact details, click here.

Our Terms of Use are here.

Our Privacy Policy is here.