From: "Milton Aupperle" <milton@outcastsoft.com>

Date: October 27, 2005 3:36:21 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Mars Dust Storm Movie


Hi Folks;


It's a bit crude, but here is a movie


http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Astro_IIDC/files/Planetary/Mars_Oct_21to23_2005L.mov


showing the dust storm evolution over 3 nights. These are all taken

with my MAK 127 mm aperture scope at 4090 mm focal length (F/32) using

a 16 bit color Flea FireWire camera at 30 fps.


the time difference between each frame represents about 15 minutes of

real time, so 1 second (12 frames) of play in the movie represents 3

hours of rotation. I also changed the colors from my original

composite sequences, so that it's more in line with what other people

are using (all I see visually the scope is a reddish bright disk with

vague greenish markings on it and maybe a hint of blue polar hood -

color is subjective).


Note that the dust clouds are more yellowish, where as the Mars

surface is a bit more reddish. Also it's interesting to see how much

sunlight the clouds reflect crossing the sunlit side of the west limb

or when they are perpendicular to the observer, especially in the

middle Oct 22 series. The asymmetry of the polar hood due to axial

tilt is also pretty obvious too.


Milton Aupperle