From Silvia KOWOLLIK
®. . . . . .
Subject: Re: Mars Image
and a new one...
Dear Masatsugu,
I was very surprised, when André asked me to forward this picture, because I am not really a
Planetary Observer like him. Normally I work with public guiding on our Teleskopes on Swabian Observatory
in
I have several Problems:
- I must mount my Webcam each
night new, so the orientation is not exactly the same on my pictures...
- If there are thin clouds or fog (not to see with naked
eye), the colorjustage is not ok, and then the
pictures are too yellow...
- It is very hard to put a "sharp" picture,
because the original single pictures are very dark and I have to take about 600
pictures/min with my webcam and add them with Giotto to see a good quality result (adding takes
about 10 min). And I only have a time window of about 60 min to take pictures,
then if the sky is deep blue and I cannot take any more pictures... So I can
try maximum 5x the right sharp point...
> Here in
> the rainy season has begun
from around 9 June and continues up
> until the end of July.
We don’t have a rainy season, but during the last days we
had some hard thunderstorms and 3!!! tornados and I
went "blind" to the observatory in hope, that the sky will become
clear. And I was lucky. Here is the next picture, taken on
16th June, 2:33 UT
Best regards
(
®. . . . . .Dear
Masatsugu,
>
Thank you for your second image which I received this morning. You
>
are very welcome to our CMO, and the second image is also nice. I
>
shall soon send it to Murakami who is in charge of the CMO Mars
>
Gallery to be uploaded within this morning.
I am very surprised/proud, that my pictures are welcome -
this is the first time that I observe with a group... I will send as much
pictures, as I can take...
>
Sorry we are using our jargons, but lambda implies the Martian
>
season counted by the areocentric longitude of the Sun
(Ls), and
>
omega does the longitude of the central meridian,
while fai is the
>
latitude of the central point (S implying that the
tilt of the
>
south pole tilts toward us). The delta denotes the
apparent
>
diameter, and iota does the phase angle which suggests
how far the
>
>
>
I think you can find a necessary ephemeris in
>
http://homepage3.nifty.com/~cmohk/coming2003/2003index.htm
I think, I need some assistance for the next 1 or 2
pictures, and then I can do it alone... The picture was taken at
lambda=204.65
LS
omega=299,27
deg ?
fai=20,98
deg S ?
delta=14,49
arcsec ?
iota=0,8815
?
>
I already made an access to the Web-Site of the Schwaebische
>
Sternwarte, and it appeared to me as a good place to
observe, and I
>
am sure you will make rapid progress if you will continue.
I try to do it continuously, but it is hard to stand up 5
hours earlier than normal...
I take bitmaps with the programme "Giotto",
http://www.videoastronomy.org/giotto.htm
there I
can take 600 Pictures each Minute with an exposure time of 1/25 sec. With good
Seeing I take 1200 Pictures and stack them with "Giotto",
then correct the blue and red channel (atmospheric refraction), then change
contrast, sharpening, then correct color balance
(depending on chip temperature/dust/thin clouds/moonlight...).
Stacking takes the longest Part - about 12 minutes with 1200
pictures, the rest is about 3 or 4 minutes "try and error", because
not every function has a "wysiwyg"... but I
got more and more experience, and so now I have some good "Housenumbers" for the filter functions...
"Registack", "Astrocap" and also "Astrostack"
are not as good as I want: "Giotto" has
more functions, works faster, and I knew the Guy, who programmed it... So I can
tell him my wishes for the next version or tell him bugs...
Best regards
PS: May I ask you, are you male or female? I am female, the
only active Webcam observer in Stuttgart...
(
®. . . . . .Subject: Re: Mars Image and a new
one...
Dear Masatsugu,
>
I don't know about the so-called Mars Previewer, but
though some use
>
it, it looks no good. Ours depends on the Astronomical
Almanac
ok, I
will look for the Almanac...
>
Next I should advise you that no details of decimals are necessary,
>
because 0.5 of the season does not mean anything...
ok I
understand...
>
Another point: If the observable time becomes longer, you may
>
produce a series of images one night. In that case, take images
>
every 40 minutes,
ok, I understood.
I think, in 10 days I can start taking 2 pictures in a 40 minute span, then
Mars will be higher over horizon, the observing time is longer and I can start
earlier...
>
...In this way we can collect different day surfaces showing the
>
same LCM (omega) to compare. Do you understand?
Yes.
Giotto is
a free programme, but there is neither a German nor English helptext
available. So I made a "small" helptext in
German on my homepage,
http://www.silvia-kowollik.de/astro/webcam/giotto.htm
but my
(written) English is not good enough for a translation. Sorry.
(
®. . . . . .Subject: Re: Mars Image and a new
one...
Dear Masatsugu,
>
(If you become accustomed, you may take every 20 minutes on a fixed
>
time schedule as some others do. In that way, you can
obtain two
>
sets of series since zwei times 20 minutes =40
minutes.)
I think, that will be possible...
>
I suppose you will be able start around
>
when Mars is nearly at opposition. The time
>
here
>
we shall end the observation.
That’s my situation now.
Are there more observers from
>
We shall put in our Favourite Links a linkage to your Web. Is it
>
OK?
to my
private site? thats ok. You
may also put a link to the site of the Swabian
observatory, where I take the pictures:
> I saw three cats + alfa in
your web. My family consists also of
> three cats + three including
me.
I love cats. They have their own head. They just do, what they want...
Tonight we had clouds, so I could not take a picture...
Best wishes
(
®. . . . . .Subject: new Mars Image
21.6. 2:10 GMT
Dear Masatsugu,
between
Clouds I could take this picture - not very sharp, Seeing was very bad... Are
you also interested in such bad pictures?
(
®. . . . . .Subject:
Re: new Mars Image 21.6.
Dear Masatsugu,
> Thank you for your contribution. It's OK, maybe
just be
> made slightly less dark.
I was lucky,
to get the picture - it was in a very small "free" part of the sky -
we had a lot of clouds. And I think, there were some
very thin clouds, not seen by naked eye...
I will continue and hope
on better weather conditions...
(
®. . . . . .Subject: new Mars Image
22.6. 2:20 GMT
Dear Masatsugu,
>
I thought the first one was too dark and the second too bright, and
>
so I have just made another to show a light area of
>
explicit. Attached find please the one made by me and
I hope you
>
don't mind if I send this to CMO-Murakami to upload (who is in charge
>
of the CMO Mars Gallery).
That’s ok.
Yesterday I could take a new picture of mars (at
lambda =
208 Ls
omega =
257 deg
fai =
21 deg S
delta =
15,2"
iota =
40
is
this correct? I think, I understand it now...
Best regards
(
Silvia
KOWOLLIK (
