Detail from the edge of Santa Maria.

This crater is looking interesting!

Phobos - another one of those sc-fi pictures.

Phobos over Mars' limb.
Credit: ESA / DLR / FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

3 in 1

Three planets in one night, Venus, Saturn and Mars. 3x TV Barlow, IR filter & SKYnyx. All taken just after 8:30 in a blue sky.

Jupiter, Mars & M51 from HST data.

Jupiter from 1995:-




The image of M51 is from a 1.2GB FITS file :-o

(C) Hubble Legacy Archive

Amazing Mars video.

This is an animation flying over southwest Candor Chasma on Mars. It was created from NASA's HiRISE DTM and image data by Adrian Lark.

Credit: Adrian Lark

Mars 2nd March 2010

Mars is shrinking!
Misty tonight, not very good seeing either.
This is an IR, synth green, blue RGB, if you can figure that one out!

Mars 20th Feb 2010

Here's an IR, RGB from last night.

And some orographic clouds earlier. (taken with RGB, 16bit ser mode)
Seems to have a nicer tonal value than the image above that makes it look like a globe.

Mars 11th Feb 2010

The seeing was not as good as last night, and it's just clouded over, Doh!

Mars 10th Feb

Here's one from slightly earlier in the evening using IR, RGB technique.

Mars 10th Feb 2010 - Fair seeing.

Fairly good seeing tonight, although clouds stopped play soon after this last image.
C9.25, RGB filters, 5x TV Powermate, SKYnyx 2-0M.
I used the red again as the Lum channel.


Below is an IR synth Green, Blue image.

Mars 9th Feb 2010

The seeing was very hit and miss again last night, very difficult to focus.
I think it's because of the cold coming down from the North.

Mars 31st Jan 2010

Too many clouds tonight, just one quick Mars image.

Mars 30th Jan 2010

Very cold again last night but clear throughout. The seeing was quite strange, very high frequency shimmering is the only way I can explain it.
I also cleaned my corrector plate before the session, that was fun in the freezing cold, trouble is I've got some stuff on the other-side of the glass as well. So I'll have to dismantle it completely and deal with that at a later date.
I checked the collimation as well, but since the seeing wasn't that great it's very difficult to tell.
This image was taken at the end of the session, I used my usual 5x Powermate with the filter wheel on the end of it, I also used a barlow extension tube to give it a bit more mag.

Here's a short video showing the type of seeing, 5x Powermate through IR filter, SKYnyx 2-0M.

As you can see Registax does an amazing job.

Mars at opposition 29th Jan 2010

The seeing wasn't that great last night for the opposition, but at least it was clear.
Really cold though, my legs were freezing by the time I'd finished, started imaging at 8:40 and finished just before midnight... brrrrr!

And here's a none filtered b/w.

Mars 23rd Jan 2010

Quick! it's clear.
Mars is almost at opposition, so it better clear up.
Average seeing, IR, Synth Green, Blue. Using 5x Powermate.

Couldn't get rid of the horrible edge artifact :-(

Mars 9th Jan 2010

Slightly better seeing tonight, transparency wasn't very good though. Mars was very high which probably helped with the seeing.
These are IR, synth Green, Blue images.
The same as last night, I managed a few captures and then it clouded over.

Mars from 7th Jan 2010

Very cold in the UK last night. Some places in Scotland were down to -21C.
Lowest Night Min: Benson (Berkshire): -17.7C about 20 miles away. (from BBC weather)

This image was taken using an IR and Blue filter, combined to produce a synthetic Green. (3000 frames per channel, using the best 1000 processed in Registax).
It was the best from the night, I didn't want to stay out too long as I was worried that the PC might get frosty and blow up! Plus it clouded over just as this finished and I certainly wasn't going to hang around in sub zero temperatures :-\



















That's Syrtis Major Planitia to the left just coming round the corner; see this

Mars 3rd Jan 2010

Mars from a very cold last night. The two on the left are using the 5x TV Powermate and the one on the right has a small extension tube to boost the image size.
Using C9.25 and RGB filters with an IR filter as the lum channel.
The seeing was average, but later it was worse.

The seeing got steadily worse later, so I packed up, just as well I was frozen!

As an off topic aside, I went to work today and was going around a very gentle bend in the road at about 20mph and my BMW did a complete 180 degree turn on some black ice!. Luckily there were no other cars around at the time. :-0

Mars quickly processed... more tomorrow.

Mars 27th dec 2009

Went out last night to image Mars and managed to capture some stuff, although the seeing and conditions weren't up to much. There seems to be a lot of dew recently.

I went out on the 24th as well but had to stop because everything was totally dewed over. The scope, mount, filters and camera. It was getting a bit dangerous and I was scared that the computer might blow up!.

This image was taken with LRGB and 5 x Powermate with an extension tube, Mars is still really small :-(