Big "up" opportunity about to happen!
Jun 24, 2018 08:54:13 #
On July 27, 2018 the relative position in the orbits of Earth and Mars around the sun treats us to its best opposition, or closest approach to Earth, since 2003 and it won't be this close for another 15 years. Because of this opposition, the days leading up to and just after July 27 are prime days to view and photograph the Red Planet......time to haul out the big SCT's - I plan to use the Vixen 12 inch SCT with the ASI120MM-S - that chip size will be my best bet for the narrowest fov with the stuff I have to work with. I guess the only other thingie I have two work with our barlows.....and I might as well give a 4x Telavue a twirl.
This will be a challenge for me because planets vary in distance and their orbits around the sun also vary so there is no tracking rate for planets........I guess I will go with sidereal (my other choices are lunar and solar and neither of those can work) unless anyone has any other thoughts on how to manage this....help! With a 4x barlow - I will be praying for a windless night - and tracking that can keep mars in the frame for at least 30 minutes at a time as I collect long exposure subs.....I defer to my planetary imaging friends....am I complicating this??
Mars can be as close to the Earth as 54.6 million kilometers as it will appear on the 27th of July, and the farthest apart they can be is about 401 million km....so the target will be larger - perhaps even twice the size of it's average place in the sky 225 million km.
The "fun is in the trying"
This will be a challenge for me because planets vary in distance and their orbits around the sun also vary so there is no tracking rate for planets........I guess I will go with sidereal (my other choices are lunar and solar and neither of those can work) unless anyone has any other thoughts on how to manage this....help! With a 4x barlow - I will be praying for a windless night - and tracking that can keep mars in the frame for at least 30 minutes at a time as I collect long exposure subs.....I defer to my planetary imaging friends....am I complicating this??
Mars can be as close to the Earth as 54.6 million kilometers as it will appear on the 27th of July, and the farthest apart they can be is about 401 million km....so the target will be larger - perhaps even twice the size of it's average place in the sky 225 million km.
The "fun is in the trying"
Jun 24, 2018 12:50:01 #
nikonshooter wrote:
On July 27, 2018 the relative position in the orbi... (show quote)
Funny you should bring this up today.
Last night I setup with my 11" SCT and played with Saturn waiting for Mars to climb above my tree blocker.
I am posting both Saturn and Mars uncropped from last nights session under fair viewing.
I figured it was time to pull out the big guns.
Results were fair for Saturn and by the time Mars
rose, well not so great.
I am hoping to get some decent scope time but it is getting close to our monsoon season and might be a problem.
It should be fun either way
Jim
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