Mars 15 April 2014 - First LRGB Image

Hi Guys,

I decided to take advantage of Mars' proximity to us, and try my hand at LRGB planetary imaging, for the first time. All a bit daunting to be honest, with a lot of bits to remember, or at least try (File-names | Filters | Focus etc.. sheesh!), but I managed to produce something that I'm reasonably happy with, despite the fact that seeing was absolutely terrible.

Image taken using...

• Meade ETX-125 (Pimped ) - mounted on Vixen GPDX
• ImagingSource DMK21AU618 Mono Cam through FireCapture. Comprises of a 80 seconds per channel at average 30 fps.
• Baader RGB and IR-Pass Filters in ZWO Filter Wheel
• 2.5X Powermate for (f/35).
• Individual LRGB Images Aligned/Stacked with Wavelets applied in Registax6
• Combined/Tweaked in Photoshop CS6.

I stuck in the WinJupos representation of Mars for reference. Mine is the image on the Right!



Cheers,

Neil

Looks great Neil,

[strike]Was that taken lastnight (Tue 15th)? [/strike]I took a shot on Monday night (14th) but the seeing was really bad.
I think the jet-stream is interfering at the moment. I heard it will be better at the end of the week / weekend.
Derek

Hi Neil,

Well done on the image you got some really good detail and the image processing is very good. As for all the procedures welcome to the wonderful world of astrophotography :>))

Carl.