Mars as it gets closer

Just got an opportunity between the clouds to catch this image of Mars tonight. Visually in the eyepiece Syrtis Major was very obvious and contrasty in moments of clarity.


Michael Scully

Kerry Astronomy Club

very nice Michael.

Michael, thats a good shot. What was your set up?

Keith.

Thanks for the comments Dave, Keith.

Setup is 222mm f5.77 self made Dob (David Hinds optics) on Poncett type tracking platform with Celestron X2 Ultima barlow and Tucam pro 740k and no filters.

I find it difficult to get steady images on windy nights due to air turbulence here just north of the mountains in Tralee. Only one of the five videos taken last night was anyway useable :roll:

Michael.

Perseverance always pays off Michael
How many frames did you use?

Dave,

For a 30 second AVI I get 203 frames (even when it is set at 10 fps?? Old portable??) From this about 137 were used.

I tried adding all the videos together but the result was worse than when just using the one AVI file! The othere were fairly bad though!

I had a visual look earlier tonight through the high cloud and the image was much steadier but still too low in the east at the time. Then more cloud and the forecast does not look good for the next few days.


Michael