From: Phil Houston <pkh111@knology.net>

Date: December 16, 2007 8:47:04 PM MST

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Mars Dec. 2nd & 7th

Hi All,

II too have been trying to capture a good Mars image this year but the skies have not been the best so far here either.  The few clear nights have been turbulent and Mars looks like an egg rolling around in my scope.  I have tried stacking many videos but none showed any promise until I manually selected an alignment area slightly larger than the planet and stacked fewer than the usual percentage of frames.  I have not tried multiple alignments on Mars yet and don't know if selecting a large area is the best way to go but it seemed to help.  It sure slows things down though.  The images are over processed but I really wanted to bring out some details.  I wish now that I had not trashed the videos of the more interesting sides of Mars.

Below are temporary links to images taken on the 2nd and 7th.  Both were taken through a 6" Mak, Astronomiks RGB filters, and a DMK 31AF03 camera. I'm not sure why the color between the two images are so different.  It was not intentional.  Hopefully, we will have a least one night of good seeing this month.

http://www.knology.net/~pkh111/q6mars120207.jpg

http://www.knology.net/~pkh111/q6mars120707.jpg

Good seeing and Happy Holidays,

Phil