Imaged Saturn and Mars on the night of July 10, 2018. The seeing was very good ~ 4/5. One of my better Mars images. The global dust storm is pretty much obscuring most surface features, but the south polar cap and northern polar hood are somewhat visible and some surface features are just glimpsed. Based on some reading on the cloudynights solar system imaging forum, I tried imaging with and without the IR-cut filter (some folks saw better detail through the dust storm without the IR filter). My results were similar with a slightly better result without the filter which I am posting here.

Imaged with a C8 Evo, custom Siebert 2x barlow, ZWO ADC, NO filter, and ZWO ASI224MC. Adjusted the imaging train to give me ~F/25 (by playing around with the adapter the custom barlow is connected to, using a slightly longer one here). Image capture using Firecapture. Stacking in AutoStakkert3. Deconvolved in Fitswork4. Color balancing and Wavelet sharpening in Registax6. Lastly, derotated and combined 3 frames in WinJupos10.9 to generate the final image. Each of the individual images is a stack of the best 25% of ~15,000 frames captured over 240 seconds.

FireCapture v2.5 Settings

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Camera=ZWO ASI224MC

Filter=L

Profile=Mars

Diameter=22.48"

Magnitude=-2.43

CM=317.2° (during mid of capture)

FocalLength=5150mm (F/25)

Resolution=0.15"

Filename=2018-07-10-0636_5-J-L.avi

Date=2018_07_10

Start=063434.117

Mid=063634.117

End=063834.117

Start(UT)=063434.117

Mid(UT)=063634.117

End(UT)=063834.117

Duration=240.000s

Date_format=yyyy_MM_dd

Time_format=HHmmss

LT=UT -5h

Frames captured=15465

File type=AVI

Extended AVI mode=true

Compressed AVI=false

Binning=no

ROI=364x338

ROI(Offset)=0x0

FPS (avg.)=64

Shutter=2.000ms

Gain=275 (45%)

HighSpeed=on

AutoHisto=75 (off)

USBTraffic=90

WRed=52

HardwareBin=off

Gamma=50

Brightness=1

WBlue=95

AutoExposure=off

SoftwareGain=10 (off)

Histogramm(min)=0

Histogramm(max)=180

Histogramm=70%

Noise(avg.deviation)=n/a

Limit=240 Seconds

Sensor temperature=30.9 °C