Mars (OSC) on 16th September 2020

Atmospheric turbulence was quite bad tonight but pleased to get my first image of Mars. Southern Polar cap seen at the bottom.

 

The dark feature towards the top is Niliacus Lacus. The bright region on the left is the Tharsis region.

 

 

Celestron 9.25 inch SCT with ZWO224MC colour camera.

ZWO ADC at +/-2

FireCapture acquisition software

AutoStakkert!3 for stacking.

RegiStax6 for wavelet sharpening

Colour balance in PS.

 

Best 50% stacked of a 5000 frame video @ 108 frames per second. Focal length = 6000mm.

 

21 arcseconds diameter and increasing as it nears Earth in its orbit. It’s just after winter solstice on Mars (Ls =279) so Southern Hemisphere is tilted sunwards.

 

Magnitude -2.2

Distance 3.7 Light minutes

CM = 40

Done