From: "Milton Aupperle" <milton@outcastsoft.com>
Date: December 21, 2007 9:21:33 AM MST
To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: Mars Dec. 2nd & 7th
Hi Phil;
Nice Shots of Mars. So far the only recognizable features I got was in
October. I was out on the 16th (-18°C here) and got basically nothing
again, even though I was shooting at 25 millisecond exposures / 30 fps
and at 5,000 mm focal length.
One thing to keep in mind when stacking that using more frames is not
necessarily the best thing. The main reason to stack many frames it to
reduce noise. If you use high gains then the noise is going to show up
in the final image unless you stack lots of frames. Some of my large
lunar composites were done with 30 to 50 stacked frames out of 2000+ shot.
Also when selecting an area for alignment especially for larger round
objects, try and pick a diagonal area (i.e North East, North West,
South East or South West)corner. You want to try and get an area that
has some vertical and horizontal oriented edges on it, so it can lock
onto them.
Hope That Helps..
Milton Aupperle
--- In Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com, Phil Houston <pkh111@...> wrote:
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