From Christophe PELLIER
® . . . . . Subject: Mars may
26, 2003
Hi all,
here is a Mars image from this morning. Despite my unfavourable
latitude I find that the observing conditions are really improving and I didn't
expect to see so "much" on these images... The "
http://astrosurf.com/pellier/2003-05-26-CPE.jpg
Best wishes
(25
May 2003
® . . . . . .Subject: Mars may
27, 2003
Hi Mars observers.
This morning the seeing was a bit
poorer than yesterday but the major dark regions are seen. The blue image
couldn't be totally processed because I didn't have enough frames to do so.
Image uploaded in the "new images" folder.
Best regards
(26
May 2003
® . . . . . .Subject: Mars may
28, 2003
Hello everyone
This morning the seeing was better than
on the two previous days. I made two series of blue, red and LRGB images
showing CM 150-160 on Mars. A white cloud is noted over Tharsis, very well seen
in the blue images. It has been uploaded with the other recent images.
Best regards
(27
May 2003
® . . . . . .Subject: Mars may 29
2003
Dear Mars observers,
this morning seeing was fairly good
(above all at 20-23ﾟ high), but transparency was a bit fair
and this has lowered the quality of the blue images. Note some possible details
inside the SPC itself. Images uploaded in the photo sections.
Regards,
PS note that I have changed my image format
from "CPE" to "CPI", to match the CMO code.
(28
May 2003
® . . . . . . Subject: Mars may 31
2003
Hi all,
Mars this morning in
good seeing but poor to fair transparency.
This is the first time I use a good Astronomik filter
for the blue image, and despite the hazy/cloudy sky the image is yet better
than the previous ones with the wratten filter. Again
the same shadowy areas are noticed in the SPC. Clouds over Tharsis, and in the
first image Solis Lacus comes into view.
Best wishes,
(30 May 2003
® . . . . . .Subject: Mars June
5 2003
Hello all. The atmosphere was quite
turbulent this morning, but the Solis Lacus area is well visible on these
images. They are however far from being as good as Paolo's yesterday images of
the same region ! Note that I have added a RG610 red
filter to my equipment, but I still need to rely on the exotic RR(G)B composite for the color image, which is there more
for illustration purpose indeed. The blue image seems to show some clouds over Xanthe.
Note for the Mars Observers group: I
have uploaded the image in the files, but there is also a link
:
http://astrosurf.com/pellier/2003-06-05-CPI.jpg
Regards
(
® . . . . . .Subject: Mars
Hi all
Seeing was just a bit better this
morning but the images still have a moderately pleasing aspect, not to say
more, however the "canals" around Solis Lacus are well visible. A
question to all : in the first red image there is a
very thin rift inside the SPC. Is it real, and if so could it be the Rima Angusta ?
http://astrosurf.com/pellier/2003-06-06-CPI.jpg
Regards
(
® . . . . . .Subject: Mars
Hello everyone, this is an image of
Mars taken with a C14. Unfortunately seeing was poor and there was a mistake in
the setting of the webcam. Sorry for the low quality,
I will improve the images in the times to come.
http://astrosurf.com/pellier/2003-06-09-CPI
Best wishes
(
® . . . . . .Subject: Mars
Hello : this morning the seeing was the
better I had so far on Mars, amazing at the 22-26ｰ altitude. This really give a change to the images, I hope I'll have
more mornings like this one ! I see no change in the
Sinus Meridiani - Syrtis Major area since the previous
images taken from other places in the world.
http://astrosurf.com/pellier/2003-06-16-CPI
Regards,
(
® . . . . . .Subject: CMO 271
Dear Masatsugu:
it's two weeks now since the CMO 271 issue has been uploaded to the CMO
homepage; but this time I did not received any paper copy of it. Was there any problem ? If so please openly tell me !
Best regards,
(
® . . . . . .Dear Masatsugu and all ;
Thanks for your long e-mail. I was only a little bit surprised to have
no news from CMO, but I guess how you can be very busy and how this CMO work
can be very demanding...
I have closely followed the discussions about the problems with the
color chip of the ToUcam. Originally I started to filter my images because the
planet is too low here to make a correct unfiltered color image (even with an
IR blocking filter). But at last I think that it turned to be also a good
solution for the blue image. Yes my blue filter is an Astronomik
of type II, which reject IR wavelengths with no need of an additional IRB
filter. Although my images with this filter haven't been outstanding (if the
transparency is less than good the final image will be very noisy), they barely
show the white clouds of the planet and so far I don't think that they have
ever revealed any hint of the dark markings. The Astronomik
filters of type II seem to have almost the same characteristics of the IDAS
ones - I have attached the filtering curves for your interest. About the Wratten blue filters, they produce images that are strongly
polluted by the IR. If you take a look at these images I have also attached you
will see this. The W38A has always a ghost IR Mars at the background ; one way
to solve this until I received the Astronomik filter
was to separate the image taken in color mode into R, G, B, and then the
greatest part of the IR was kept in the "Red" component. Of course in
my mind it was just a way to secure a blue image that could be useful at a
minimum. But the greatest surprise came from the W47 filter. You are correct if
you think that this filter may give an incorrect blue image. As you can see on
the images, used without an IRB filter the W47 produces a very bright image of
Mars in IR (and maybe a bit of R also). Even visually there may be a problem:
if I take a look with naked eye through it after sunset at the bright thin
clouds that sometimes can be seen in the darkening sky, these clouds appear of
a beautiful deep purple tint. But if I use it with an IR-Block filter stacked, this color totally disappear; unless my W47 is an unusual
bad one, it is clear that it leaks a good part of the red spectrum...
The good news about this topic is that I will soon have a new CCD
sensor: Paolo Lazzarotti, who has a little firm of
astronomical accessories, is going to send me this week a modified ToUcam with
an ICX098BL Sony black and white sensor : it will
gather much more light and will solve for ever the wavelength problems of the
color chip !
Thanks also for your thoughts about the
use of the green filter. This was really a question for me. I'm going to
consider buying the rest of the Astronomik RGB set. I
also prefer RGB composites to LRGB ones ; indeed, the
color images I have produced so far where there only for illustrative purposes.
The point is that my 180 mm newtonian is hard to
master in a mechanical point of view: the fine RA movement doesn't work and I
have no filter wheel so it will take me a lot of time to change the filter,
refocusing the instrument, trying to keep Mars inside the field... So it will
maybe be hard for me to secure three images in a limited range of time to build
a RGB image.
About my images from this morning 16 june,
the bright western part of Hellas is certainly a floor-feature, as it is seen
also on almost every image of the region taken recently (for example, Don
Parker may 20 image or Tan Wei Leong
may 5 image). I'm surprised however that you say the bright streak in Hellas on
11 june 2001 was not a dust streak, this was also
clear for me, as the MGS images on that day (taken a bit later if I'm not wrong
than the images secured in the USA by Parker, Grafton and Bates for example)
really seem to show a dust cloud in south-western Hellas. About
The weather here is usually variable. During summer my region can have
periods or two or even three weeks of cloudy weather, and this can't be
predicted in advance. Right now
I wish you much luck for your observations. On my side I hope to catch
the important Syrtis Major/Hellas area on the following days.
Kind regards,
(
® . . . . . .Dear Masatsugu :
Many thanks for sending me the CMO
issues, and the e-mail.
At the end of the week I'll be equipped
with the B/W ToUcam and the complete RGB filters set of Astronomik,
and I think I should go for that method. I'll keep using the RG610 for a single
high-resolution B/W image, alone.
My best regards,
(
® . . . . . .Subject: Mars
Hi all : this
morning the seeing was good and the transparency excellent. I've been able to
make three series of images ; and for the first time
I've managed to get a correct image with a "normal" color avi file of the ToUcam, despite the low altitude of the
planet. Note that the three blue images all show clearly the dark markings of
the planet.
http://astrosurf.com/pellier/2003-06-21-CPI
Regards
(
® . . . . . .Subject: Mars
Hi all:
Good seeing and transparency this
morning. This time all color images have been realized with the ToUcam in color
mode (with an UV/IR blocking filter). I find that the aspect of the planet is
much more realistically rendered than with my previous RRGB composites; like
the very fine creamy color of
http://astrosurf.com/pellier/2003-06-24-CPI
Regards
(
Christophe PELLIER (Bruz,
chrispellier@tiscali.fr
