Mars sequences taken June 29, 2005. The resolution is not quite as good as the best on the 28th. The 4:48am and 5:15am images show the albedo features the best(see the 28th image for more detail). I think the darkest spot is Solis Lacus.  

Mars, June 29, 2005. Taken 5:15am CDT 

Straight Wall (Rupes Recta) and the crater Birt. Taken June 29, 2005 while doing focus tests on the moon before moving to Mars. The rille, Rima Birt, is really nice here. 

Plato. This is the clearest image of the floor of Plato I've gotten. 

This is Mars compared to the BAA chart. Solis Lacus is the dark feature near the central meridian--just right of center against the terminator. Mare Sirenum is on the left. Aonius Sinus is the dark region near the lower center just above the south polar cap. It is tough to line up the feature up definitively when the features are so small and blurred by the atmosphere.  

Mars sequences, June 28, 2005. The seeing is really quiet tonight except for a small fast ripple. The images 6, 7, 11, and 12 are all pretty sharp. 

Triesnecker Rilles and Rima Hyginus just at the top. Ahh! This kind of image makes getting up at 4am worthwhile.  

Mars, June 28 2005 5:14 am CDT. I am much happier with the seeing today. I'll do more comparisons later. 

Mars has been difficult the last two days. I have images, but none are very sharp. I did however get a nice barlow image of Rima Hyginus on the last quarter moon. June 27, 2005. 

This compares the images today and yester day with nearly the same central meridian longitude, 138 and 132 degrees, with a section of a BAA chart showing Mare Sirenum and the same longitude range. The center each image is marked by white and red circles; likewise, on the BAA chart. The map projection doesn't curve with the planet, but the chart shown is a decent match for the central region of the two images.  

I don't think the resolution today was quite as good as the best images yesterday. I also woke up late and grabbed the sequences well into the brightening twilight.  

Mars -- sequences 9 and 12 seem the sharpest. The processing in registax was similar for each sequence 8-13; some minor color balance and level adjustments were made to make each sequence's image comparable to the other sequence's images. Images 9 and 12 were given exagerated contrast, 9b and 12b, to see surface detail. Some of the light spots may be real, though there are differences between 9b and 12b which make me wary of overinterpreting the small features. I guess we'll see as Mars gets closer. Compared to the earlier images I used a smoother algorithm for enlarging the images so the background noise level is lower on these images.  

Jupiter June 24, 2005 8:39 CDT 

The chromatic aberration in the Mars images bothered me. The blue image shows more of the haze and the polar cap than the other channels, but also seems to fluctuate and drift out of register more from the effects of seeing than the other two channels. Note the surface detail in the red channel, though the green is ok and shows the polar cap well. 

Mars, 5:28am June 23, 2005. 

Jupiter. It is hot and hazy, but seems steadier. I hope this setup works for Mars later. 

I think I can identify the albedo markings now. I've been unsure of the identifications even after looking at charts. The bar slanting down from the middle to the right on all three images, but most distinct in the 5:19 image is Mare Sirenum. The planet is rotating from left to right. Meade 10" and 2x Barlow with Toucam. 

Mars is a difficult target. While waiting for some other results, I decided to compare the size of Mars and the size of lunar craters through the telescope. Here is a Mars inset with a image of the crater Copernicus. Copernicus is 95km in diameter, Mars is 3390 km in radius but much further away.  

More Mars. I had a real fight with Registax on the last two images. The 5:15 exposure was much much easier to process and the limb of the planet came out better. I tried varying the processing to minimize artifacts near the limb which is why there are two versions here. I'm not sure what is real and what is artifact on these images. The June 20 images were easier. 

Mosaic of the region northwest of Mare Humorum. June 20, 2005. 

Alternate processing of the 5:32am frames, ca. 300 frames this time out of 1000 in Registax. More frames gives a smoother image when processed, but sometimes wipes out the few hints of small details. Hard to balance these.  

This is heavily processed to emphasize the albedo features on the surface. It is from the best 200 frames out of 1000 from the webcam. The edge of the planet seems overprocessed. Taken 5:32 am CDT.  

This is my first attempt at Mars this season. It was twilight when these were taken. Meade 10" with Toucam and 2x barlow. 400 to 900 frames avi video combined in registax for each image. The focus was changed slightly for each image, but it hardly shows.  

Imbrium Basin mosaic. South up. Taken June 16. 

Region around Bullialdus and the western edge of Mare Nubium. North is up on these, consistent with map conventions. As always click on the thumbnail to see a larger image.Taken June 16.