Processing Mars

It's rather hard to make a small-aperture image of Mars to look convincing, so here is a development story of my third Martian attempt.

 

Top left: one (the best) frame from the sequence, top right - stacking result of best 800 frames out of 6000 (two minutes long movie @50fps), bottom left - deconvolution in AstraImage 3.0 (parameter - see below) and bottom right - final image after adjusting black and white points with levels and overall contrast with curves in Photoshop.

 

Acquisition time (capture started): JD2456742,35668981 (26.03.2014, 00:33:38 MSK).

Image orientation: almost straight

Equipment:

Canon EOS 60D (unmodded) attached to Vixen VMC110L Klevtsov-Cassergain telescope via 2x Barlow lens riding on Celestron CG-4 (Skywatcher EQ-3) equatorial mount without RA motor (manually, just manually :).

Aperture 110 mm

Focal length 2070 mm

Tv = 1/60 second (video recording 640x480 @50 fps)

Av = f/18,8

ISO 1600

Exposures: 800 of 6000

Processing: Canon .MOVs were converted into .AVIs with eRight Software SUPER(r). Stacking was done in Autostakkert2 (image stabilization by center of gravity). Stacked image was deconvolved in AstraImage 3.0 (Cauchy type PSF, size 2,3 units, 8 iterations). The channels were aligned and contrast enhancement was made in Photoshop.

 

Note: font - Freestyle Script.

 

 

Done