Mars on July 19, 2018 (JDJ)

Mars on July 19, 2018

As Mars nears opposition, I'm taking every opportunity to image (when the seeing and weather cooperates, which seems like once a week at best). Imaged Mars on the evening of July 19th under fair to good seeing and average transparancy. The dust storm still dominates the view and I wasn't able to discern any surface features until the images were post-processed. The south polar cap and northern polar hood are again somewhat visible through the dust.

Imaged with a C8 Evo, custom Siebert 2x barlow, ZWO ADC, UV-IRcut filter, and ZWO ASI224MC. Imaging train was configured to give me ~F/25. 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 ~10,000-30,000 frames captured over 240 seconds.

FireCapture v2.5 Settings

------------------------------------

Camera=ZWO ASI224MC

Filter=RGB

Profile=Mars

Diameter=23.67"

Magnitude=-2.66

CM=216.0° (during mid of capture)

FocalLength=5100mm (F/25)

Resolution=0.15"

Filename=2018-07-19-0510_8-J-RGB.avi

Date=2018_07_19

Start=050849.322

Mid=051049.325

End=051249.329

Start(UT)=050849.322

Mid(UT)=051049.325

End(UT)=051249.329

Duration=240.007s

Date_format=yyyy_MM_dd

Time_format=HHmmss

LT=UT -5h

Frames captured=35730

File type=AVI

Extended AVI mode=true

Compressed AVI=false

Binning=no

ROI=364x338

ROI(Offset)=0x0

FPS (avg.)=148

Shutter=3.000ms

Gain=300 (50%)

Brightness=1

WBlue=95

SoftwareGain=10 (off)

HighSpeed=on

AutoExposure=off

WRed=52

HardwareBin=off

USBTraffic=100

AutoHisto=75 (off)

Gamma=50

Histogramm(min)=0

Histogramm(max)=178

Histogramm=69%

Noise(avg.deviation)=n/a

Limit=240 Seconds

Sensor temperature=28.8 °C

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