[ATMoB-discuss] Mercury and Venus images

[John Boudreau]

Recently I acquired a new DMK21AF04 video camera from The Imaging Source:
http://www.astronomycameras.com/en/products/

This camera is capable of up to 60 frames/second without compression, vs. the typical 5 to 10 fps of the ToUcam webcams I've been using for years. More fps allow more frames to be recorded in those fleeting moments of good seeing.

On May 23rd I had pretty steady seeing in the late afternoon, allowing me to record Mercury and Venus in my best detail of those planets to date. The images are at the top section of this webpage:
http://home.comcast.net/~jeboud/mercury_venus.htm

Here's a comparison of my Mercury image to a simulation from the NASA/JPL Solar System Simulator which is based on Mariner 10 images. 
http://home.comcast.net/~jeboud/IR780_mercury_052307_2341UT_vs_nasa.jpg
My image is on the left, and the NASA image to the right--- the NASA simulation been gaussian blurred to attempt to match my image's poorer resolution, and has also had the contrast boosted a bit. A small gray swath at the top of the NASA image represents a gap in the Mariner 10's imagery. A couple of Mercury videos that I've taken on Wednesday afternoon (May 30th) appear to also support the markings, although I haven't finished processing them yet.

The May 23rd Venus image is a false color result of two separate videos recorded with a Schuler UV filter and an Edmund 780nm near-IR pass filter. I also have some more Venus recordings from Wednesday afternoon/early evening which I hope to work on over the next few days.


---John Boudreau