CMO >> How do you reject the IR leakage?
  I just use in time the B+W 489 (Schott KG3) IR- Blocking filter. It was also called as "Thermo-Glas". The curve falls slower to infrared and causes a loss of 20 percent at H-alpha (656nm). In next weeks I will be replace it with the B+W 486. This is an interference filter and makes open at 400nm, then its linear about 90 percent and closes at 700nm. Transmission (for compare with 489) at H-alpha 95 percent. Its better for tricolor imaging. I will try to built in it in replacement to the chip window. So I can save two air/glass surfaces.

CMO >> We will have a small meeting of the Mars Observers at the beginning of May here at Fukui, and so could you explain us about your superb CCD technique in some more details to use as a topic in the Meeting?
  I use the OES (Optische und Elektronische Systeme) LcCCD14SC camera. The chip is a Phillips FT800 video chip with 772x580 pixels interlaced and 386x290 in binning mode. Its maximum sensitivity is at 550nm. Also I can set an offset for planets with 256x256 pixels or so. The cooling is thermoelectric regulated down to -35K below the surrounding air temperature. For planets I use commonly -20degsC absolute temperature.

  The exposuretimes are for red filtered Mars images typically 1 sec, for blue images 4 sec. Where the blue images are underexposed. But with poor seeing (like the images from April 2nd) it is the better choice. In the blue light Mars is very fainter than in red light. The FT 800 Chip has a well blue performance, 4 times better than a typical Kodak KAF400/1600. Unfortunatly I have no filterweel or so. I mount the filters on the eyepiece and for changing filters I must remove the camera from telescope and adjusting the orientation new everytime. Also my green filter does not fit yet to my eyepieces. I have planned to make a filter magazine but that needs some time. So I took a blue and a red exposure. The single images I had computed with an especially software from OES, called CoAdding that uses a filter algorythm like the Lucy-Richardson method. The noisy blue image for example were computed with some iterations for more detail and less noise. I will try try to send you an example - unfortunatly my harddisk were formatted an the example image were lost, but I will make a new one. After finishing the iterations with CoAdding in 16-bit mode I export them into 8-bit mode and make an unsharp mask for contrast enhancemant. Now the greyscale images are finished.
  The Pioneer spacecrafts wich passed Jupiter in the early seventies made exposures only in blue and red. I remembered to that and so I tried to make it also. The missing green layer were made with the combination of the blue and red image. It is not a high quality replacement to true RGB imaging, but better than only greyscaling. I had averaged the images of blue and red in rembering of visual observations of myself with green filtered mars observations. Then every greyscale image were coloured to their RGB channels. Then the separated RGB images were layered with averaging. A visual judgement helps to tune the "truecolor". For my surprise the clouds over Syrtis Mayor and Hellas looks bluish, were the clouds over Syrtis Mayor tends to withish at the border to Aeria. The white cloud at the morning limb were also well seen visually. The seeing at this night were very poor about 4-8 arcseconds with permanent jumping images, the transparancy were also fair.

CMO >> I suppose the 15cm doppelrefraktor am WFS is quite excellent. If you could send us a photograph of the telescope with yourself, we would be grateful.
  The lens is a ZEISS-B 150/2250 but the condition is not very well. This lens is old (made at the 1930s) and not correct adjusted. B-lenses are very difficult to adjust so least that was the reason that Zeiss dropped the production after the WWII. Also our lens have a aerosole film at one of the inside surfaces. But its quiet good for all days work and the best one for planetary observatons at WFS. Also we have a Zeiss APQ 130, a very excellent and new apochromate, which I will make ready to use it for planetary observatons (mount on pillar). The image quality is comparable with the B-150. . . . .
 The two last nights were clear, but I lied in bed with 38 degree Celsius fever from an infectios cold, now I am going forward to wellness. I next week I will try to continue my observations.

@ . . . . Here is the image from the 6"-Doppel- refraktor with myself. It was made from a photographer for a press release 1994. One lens is the Zeiss B 150/2250 the other a less good 150/2300 (with glued lenses) from W. Busch for star pointing. The third thinner tube is the 5" H-alpha solar telescope with a Lyot-H-alpha filter (now in reparation). It shows fine H-alpha images from the sun, disk features and limb prominences at the same time. The telescope set was build by the formerly technical chief Bernhard Wedel in 1962.