The Dutch Observatory

Today Mars is at his closest approach to Earth, just 62 million miles away!  In two days, Mars will be at opposition to earth, which means the sun is exactly opposite of Mars.  It was not too cold outside so I also decided to make an animation of one hour rotation, and captured an image every 10 minutes for one hour.  Clouds are seen over Tempe, Arcadia and Ganges/Candor and Olympus Mons and the morning limb.  Click the thumbnail for the animation to start.  These images have been made using a Meade 140 2x barlow on extention rings and I believe it does a lot better than the Celestron Shorty plus.

Last night the seeing and transparency was probably the best this winter so far and well above average, until clouds started moving in shortly after midnight.  A nice cloud over Elisia Mons and a wide cloud band streches from Mere Insula over the north tip of Syrtis Major, over Isidis Regio and way beyond Hesperia.

The winds calmed down a bit, but it still was bitter cold.  Not as cold as Joel, but 18-19 degrees is cold enough to numb my fingers.   Here an image from last night/early this morning.  It was difficult to control my scope with the handcontroller.  It looked like it did nto want to move or the backlash was set to “very long”.  I am sure I could have done better, but my fingers did not want to cooperate in the cold….

This is my first image of Mars this year.  The temperature was 21 degrees Fahrenheit with windgusts up to 19 miles an hour.  However in between the gusts there were some quiet times where the image did not move too much.  By the time i came back inside, i thought my thumb was frozen off.    Transparency was average with seeing below normal.  I made two images one with the WO barlow and the other with the Celestron Shorty Plus.  Here the image with the WO barlow which produces better contrast than the Shorty.

The forecast was average, but the clouds started to move in already as we were imaging the sun in the afternoon at CE.  When I got out at midnight, the blue moon had a hugh halo caused by a thin (?) cloud cover.  I could faintly see the stars of the constellation Leo.  Since this was the last opportunity to image Mars in 2009 for me, I gave it a shot anyway despite the bad conditions.  I was able to make two series with each filter, but when I finished I could not even see Regulus anymore.  Here the best of the two, and my last image of 2009.  BTW this image is also stacked with Emil’s software.

The humidity got to levels now where I don’t have to worry about my corrector plate so I can concentrate on imaging for a change.  The transparency and the seeing were far from what I would be hoping for, but I wanted to make use of the fact that I did not have to watch the corrector plate.  I made 7 series of RGBI images over the span of 1 hour an made also an animation.  I used some new software for these. Our friend Emil Kraaikamp from the Netherlands did let me use his (alpha version) tools.  I must say I like what I saw.  Obviously I want to check this out when my AVIs are a little better quality, but I did process the images using his software as well as Registax.  Below the two images, the left one is processed using Emil’s software, the right one using Registax.

 Here the first image of the series together with the filtered images.  Next to it a 1 hour animation of rotation of Mars. Click the thumbnail to start the rotation.

Finally a night where I did not have to worry about a dewed, or frozen over corrector plate.  Temp. was 32 degrees but the humidity dropped to 73%   However, I had to image Mars between cloud banks.  It seemed the fringes of one bank kept streching over my house, but there was enough time to get a few avis in, althoug some were cut short.  Here the best image of the night.

The forecast deteriorated as the day went on and when I was ready to go out, the sky was clovered with puffy/rolling clouds.  15 Minutes later the transparency had improved to a level where I would give it a try.  Only one set, with a compromised blue channel, until the clouds came again.  Here the only set I took this morning.  Clouds can be seen around and south of Alba Patera and between the CM and the evening limb.  Also the white spots in the NPC are distinct. 

Today the seeing was supposed to be a lot better but not here in Social Circle.  Anyway, it was good enough to get a series of images. Here one of the 5 images between 1:00 and 1:40am EST.   The white spots in the NPC are very distinct in the red and green image. 

Here an image of the 5 sets I took between 1:00 and 1:40am EST.  Click on the image next to it to see a 1/2 hour rotation of the planet.