Posts Made By: Mike Wirths

Hi all,

2 more images of Mars from the early morning of the 22nd. Just 2 processing styles, the 1st one shows more detail in the albedo features the other the progess of the dust storm into the area between Sinus Sabaeus and M.Erythraeum. Seeing was just a touch better than the night before, but transparency was off. I wonder how much transparency affects how well colour is captured? I tried shooting some sequences with my 4X's powermate but the ones shot with the 2.5 were more detailed.

--Mike

Hi all,

Getting on to some of my lunar pics that I shot while imaging Mars. I only shot a few areas since the seeing was a bit below average (so what else is new).
Heres Fracastorius done with the Infinity but with a pretty small subframe. Stack of 200. Shot through a TrueTech red filter.

--Mike

Heres a nice pairing of 2 well known craters


--Mike

Hi all,

Well I found a video from my one night of good seeing on the 3rd of October. I think I just had slightly better focus on this one which was shot at 11000mm fl. This one was 15 minutes earlier than the one I decided to process before and you can see Olympus Mons much better on the sunset edge. I resized this one 50%. Wish I would have had my filter wheel that night 8O Its a stack of 480, shot in B&W with a IR passband filter and my 18" Starmaster. 7-8/10 seeing.

Mike W

Hi all!

I took a bit of a break from the internet lately just cause its been information overload in terms of e-mail 8O
I see I've missed loads of spectacular mars images!! Also some superb lunar shots by Wes (cassini) and Paolo (Gassendi!!).
So the weathers been pretty frigid here at night with temps dipping down to -6 at night, plus its been cloudy a lot with rotten seeing when there is a hole between clouds!
Last night it was clear and the seeing got good enough (5-7/10) to try my new 4X's powermate with the Infinity to get some proper image scale. Its done with a truetech filter set (type I red and type II G, B). Each stack is about 320 for RGB.
In a few weeks my Wife and I are flying to San Diego and then driving to Baja to scout for properties to retire to, one is a 630 hectacre ranch at the 1100m elevation, it sure would be good to get away from winter Theres some pics of the land here:
http://groups.msn.com/BajaMXImages/laherradura.msnw?albumlist=2

Hi everyone!

Got back a little while back from yet another scouting trip to northern Baja Mexico. This time my Wife and I flew down as we had a less time for vaction. We had a couple land prospects in mind but did not expect to find the "perfect" spot on this visit. Much to our surprise... we DID 8O It has lots of flat pasture room for my Wifes horses, and a couple small hills not to far away where a house/observatory could be built! It has good elevation (5100 feet) and not too far in from a freshly paved road up to the San Pedro Martir national observatory. The road is being paved I'm sure as an added incentive to enchance the prospects for being chosen as the site for the new 30 meter scope project.
http://www.tmt.org/
The 3.5 km dirt road in to the property though is on the scary side, as just the week before the Score 1000 Baja off-raod race went right through the property! It took us 20 minutes to travel to the ranch! This of course could all be improved!
The property is off the electrical grid but there is a year-round running stream that could easily provide hydo-electric power. The next step is to return in the spring with my scope and test out the site, it also may take up to a year to gain title on the property, since Mexican red tape is even slower than ours! I attached a view to the NE with a 7400' ridge.

--who knows if all goes well we could be building there within a year or 2, after that maybe a astronomy B&B

P.S.--just incredible lunar images from Paolo, Alan, and Wes in the last couple weeks, WOW

--cheers

Mike W

Hi all,

Finally got out last night, it was cold (-16 C) and seeing was only 5/10 but hey at least I got some images. 18" Starmaster, 2.5 Powermate, Infinity 2-2 camera, red TT filter. Stack of 130/1100 done in Reg 3. 5 point alignment, theres a bit of seaming still going on and some weird ghosting in the top right but hey its still in beta testing. I exported the files as 12 bit PNG files then dragged and dropped them in Reg 3 (thanks for that tip Luca!) seemed to work well!

--Mike W

Hi all,

Been away from the internet for a few days the dreaded Reboot virus trashed my home computer, so the upside is I have a lot of free disk space now :S Too bad I lost a lot of good older data!

The upside was a few nights ago I did finally get some seeing that starts to show the potential of the Infinity 2-2. I stayed at 0.18"/pixel with the 2.5 Powermate the seeing was only 5-7/10, still gave me 10% nice sharp frames.
This is a stack of 120/1500 6 alignment points in Reg 3.
Scope was my 18" Starmaster.

hope you like it!

Mike Wirths

Heres another one from the same night of imaging. Same setup. I was amazed how many craterlets there were on the floor of Ptolemaeus! Hope its not too dim, it was right on the terminator so it was captured very dimly, I got CS2 yesterday so I hope that will be a good tool for finishing an image!

--cheers

Mike W

Hi all,

Another in my night of good mooning!

A bit higher sun angle shows the ariadaeus rille and nearby wreath-like Julius Caesar. Also the cool ray pattern of Dionysus to the far right of the image.
This one is a stack of 119/1240 12 points of alignment.
18" Starmaster Infinity 2-2 R/IR True Tech filter, 2.5X's barlow Image scale 0.18"/pixel

--cheers

Mike W