First Light, Mars with Video

[toothdr]

First time using the observatory, and also my new 250px scope.

I tried a combination of the following last night:
B&W Toucam
Colour Toucam
IV/UR filter / Red filter / Yellow filter
2x 3x and 5x Barlows


The images below are just a couple I grabbed last night whilst outside. Run through registax 5, and edited in CS2.
Monochrome one with Meade 2x and 3x barlows stacked and red filter.
Colour one was using Antares 5x barlow and UV/IR filter.

Anyway thanks for looking

Adam

[brianb]

Very nice! The haze on both morning and evening limbs shows up very well in the colour imgae; I've had difficulty capturing this effect.

[toothdr]

What is the haze? Dust? I thought it was an artefact from my processing Brian lol.

[brianb]

What is the haze?

It's "diamond dust" i.e. ice cloud - don't forget Mars is near aphelion, it's cold even at the equator & though there is very little water vapour in the atmosphere, the martian atmosphere still gets saturated. The cloud is very thin - probably similar to our noctilucent clouds - but near the limbs we're looking through quite a lot of it.

[toothdr]

Very good Brian, thanks for that explanation. Nice to learn something new

Regards
Adam

[paddyman]

Very impressive, wish I could get images like that! Good explanation of the haze effect, I never would have thought of that.

All the best,
Paddyman

[toothdr]

Combined the above data in PS, RRGB

[toothdr]

I made a gif from three frames, clouds rolled in so cut the session short. I turned the fan off below the mirror in the last frame and the difference is evident.