From: Alan Friedman <alan@greatarrow.com>

Date: December 16, 2007 1:20:12 PM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Fuzzy Mars

Hi Duane,

I think your mars image is good. Here is a link to an image captured in Ottawa by Rolf Meier which shows just about the same face (with preceding and following reversed.)

http://users.xplornet.com/~skywatch/pages/images/071211.jpg

The detail is all there in your image though it suffers a bit from the jitters and the blue light atmospheric features appear more subdued. 

If your data shows fairly good contrast in the albedo markings, you might try doing multiple alignments on different quadrants of the image. This can sometimes work to sharpen the detail in seeing conditions where the disk deforms from frame to frame.

Mars is an elusive quarry, especially here in Buffalo where it has remained behind clouds for months now...

best regards,

Alan

On Dec 15, 2007, at 11:40 AM, Duane wrote:

I was out on Thursday/Friday and imaged Mars several times. I sure thought I would get a
better shot as I thought the seeing was pretty good (I could defocus a star and count
defraction rings of stars like rings on a cut tree). I thought for sure I'd get a better shot, but
I'm starting to wonder if I have an issue with my setup.

How is Mars' atmosphere these days? There seems to be patches of Mars disc that are faded
and more difficult to view (see image). Also, around the limb there are brighter patches that
don't really have a reason for being there (I think) unless there is a lot of dust in the
atmosphere.

Anyway, here's my shot. My best so far this apparition, but I sure am going for better.

http://homepage.mac.com/deal/share/20071214_002722.jpg

Thanks for looking.

Duane

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