Observation by Geof Lewis: Mars - 18 Oct 2022
Uploaded by
Geof Lewis
Observer
Geof Lewis
Observed
2022 Oct 18 - 00:49
Uploaded
2022 Oct 19 - 16:54
Objects
Mars
Equipment
Exposure
5ms
Location
Norfolk, UK
Target name
Mars
Title
Mars - 18 Oct 2022
About this image
On a night of poor seeing I waited for Mars to gain some elevation, not expecting much, but as it would be only my 2nd attempt for Mars this apparation and with the new colour camera, I wanted to establish some working capture setting in FireCapture hopefully for better conditions in the coming weeks. I was right about the seeing, with Mars like a boiling tomato about to explode, but whilst I was playing around, I had a brief period around 1:45am-2:00am (BST) when the seeing improved allowing me to capture this image. It is the best 1000 frames from 75,000 captured during a 6 min SER at 5ms (200fps). Just fairly light wavelets in Registax, as it wouldn't take anything more, then final saturation and levels tweaks in Affinity Photo. I resized to 192dpi for a smoother finish and a larger image for publiaction. It's nothing to right home about, but Mars is still a long way away, displaying a disc of <14 arcsecs, so hopefully better is to come. The dark triangular of Syrtis Major is central with the huge circular impact basin Hellas Plantia towards the south. Blue clouds and ice are also seen at the north pole. At the time of this capture Mars was at an elevation of 44°, so I kept going for another hour hoping that the seeing would improve again as Mars gained greater altitude, but even with Mars in the mid 50s° elevation, it was not to be.
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David Basey,
Jeremy Shears,
Peter Tickner,
Martin Lewis,
Manolo_Rodriguez,
Mike Harlow,
Mike Greenhill-Hooper,
Grant Privett,
Dean Norris,
Peter Mulligan,
Nic Spencer
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