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Mars 2020 in the SF Bay Area

Mars
SF Bay Area Imagers •3 replies•88 views
dswtan avatar
dswtan avatar
Anyone imaging Mars? I'm getting ok results (better than 2018 after the dust storm!), but seems fuzzier than what I see from others with Edge 11 scopes. Is it the Bay Area seeing/jet stream, or local heat that's disrupting my captures, or perhaps my unreliable (?) collimation? Anyone with a 11" scope imaging locally care to share so that I have a benchmark to compare with please?

https://astrob.in/p00kzp/0/
Jerry Yesavage avatar
Jerry Yesavage avatar
Good luck… generally until last couple days had very crisp skys for my 5" refractor.

Don't remind me about collimation…. smile … past history…
pfile avatar
pfile avatar
glenn (https://www.astrobin.com/users/dts350z/) has been imaging mars and he shared some mars images at this month's SJAA meeting but it doesnt look like he has posted any to astrobin.

he had a grid of images, most of which were pretty good and one was terrible, to the extent that i asked him if that one was shown before any processing… but he said one night the seeing was just atrocious. so i guess it could just be the seeing giving you problems.

https://youtu.be/d8Ib15OrQ7g?t=3577
dswtan avatar
dswtan avatar
Thanks pfile, that’s perfect! (Also jerry — yeah… ;-))

I’ve definitely got better with practice on SCT collimation this apparition, more sessions, higher planetary elevation, and even doubling capture time to reduce noise. I would say I’m feeling more confident in nearing optimal for what is practically feasible for me at this point!