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
  • C14 XLT
  • ASI462MC
  • AP1200GTO
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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