Lunar occultation of Mars - 8 Dec 2022 (Geof Lewis)

Contains: Solar system body or event

Lunar occultation of Mars - 8 Dec 2022

Revision title: Tried to improve Mars

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Lunar occultation of Mars - 8 Dec 2022

Revision title: Tried to improve Mars

Acquisition type: Lucky imaging

Here is a series of images from my experience of the lunar occultation of Mars, which happened just before 5am at my location in the UK.
Despite suffering with my 2nd bout of Covid this year, I set my alarm for 4am and woke up to superb clear skies, but in the 15 mins it took me to get dressed and open the observatory the sky was 50% cloud with Mars no longer visible in the bright cloudy halo of the Moon. I had enough to get the target on the sensor, but no chance to focus. About 5 mins before occultation a clear patch appeared in the clouds, so I was able to do a quick, rough focus and fiddle a bit with the camera gain for brightness balance between the Moon and Mars, but couldn't do more than that as I could see the Moon racing towards Mars on the camera sensor. I started with 10s captures, but dropped them to 5 secs, all at 5ms (135fps for the full sensor). I had intended to remove the barlow lens, but didn't have time, so these are really close in views with the C14 operating at F21. Of course just as the occultation started, clouds moved over the Moon, so I had to ramp up the gain to get anything, then seconds after the final capture the Moon completely disappeared. I feel fortunate to have seen anything at all, but a bit disappointed that I had no time to nail the focus for this rare event.

H

Title: Tried to improve Mars

Description: I've expermented with some different processing to try to improve Mars.

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Lunar
Planets - Mars

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Lunar occultation of Mars - 8 Dec 2022

Revision title: Tried to improve Mars

Lunar occultation of Mars - 8 Dec 2022

Revision title: Tried to improve Mars

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Lunar occultation of Mars - 8 Dec 2022

Revision title: Tried to improve Mars

Lunar occultation of Mars - 8 Dec 2022

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