Imaging Mars with a Webcam, 2nd Attempt

This was my 2nd attempt at imaging Mars with my Philips SPC900 Webcam. This time I decided to go out a bit later, so headed out at around 10.30pm and started imaging at 11pm. Leaving it later in the evening meant that Mars was in Gemini and quite high in the sky, so hopefully the atmosphere would not affect my imaging so much.

This time I made sure that VLounge software was recording at 10fps, I also played around a lot more with the setttings.

Both images are the same, just at different resolutions and magnifications.

Mars via Webcam 3rd Dec 2007 Mars via Webcam 3rd Dec 2007

This image was stacked in Registax 4 and the clip length was around 2 minutes. I originally took the clip at 10fps, but now I have looked back at the .avi, it says the fps is 24, this may be because I had to convert the original .mpg clip into an .avi

I did not use a Barlow, so it was taken at f10, I did try to use a 4x ImageMate, but this was just too powerful, so I stuck to just using the webcam with the UV/IR filter.

I am a lot happier with these images, and I am learning a lot doing this. I think the next step is to try and fill more of the CCD chip with the red planet. This means getting hold of a good quality 2x Barlow lens.

1 comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

90 − = 89