Derby and District Astronomical Society

Mars in 2006

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This sequence of images by Barry Ashforth shows Mars between January and February 2006.



Chris Newsome took this picture of Mars and The Plieades (M45) on the 15th February 2006. Chris used a Canon EOS300D camera with a 185 mm lens at f/5.6 and a 52mm Hutech LPS filter. The picture is a composite of eight images of 75 seconds each at 200ASA and 2 images at 800ASA. Each image was calibrated in Maxim DL using dark subtraction and bias and the resulting image was then processed in CS2 using RGB Levels, Curves and Gaussian Blur. Mars was about 2.5 degrees south of M45 at the time, approximately +0.5 magnitude and about 7 arc seconds in diameter. The faintest stars on the image are about 11th magnitude. Chris comments that the whole process of setting up the equipment and taking the 10 images, and then taking down the whole setup just in time before it started raining, took just 30 minutes! The results are well worth it as this image made BAA Picture of the Week the same month!

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