| Date: 15 July 2003 | Telescope: 10 inch SCT | AVI: 1/10 sec for 120 seconds at 5 fps |
| Time: 01:12 (GMT + 2h00) | Camera: Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000 | Processing: 200 frames stacked |
| Observatory: Hartbeespoort | Magnification: 3x Tele Vue Barlow | Software: K3CCDTools and Photoshop |
| Mars Apparent Diameter: 19.2 " | Illuminated Fraction: 0.923 | Distance from Earth: 0.4885 ua | Central meridian: 349.65 |
| Date: 15 July 2003 | Telescope: 10 inch SCT | AVI: 1/10 sec for 200 seconds at 5 fps |
| Time: 02:30 (GMT + 2h00) | Camera: Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000 | Processing: 200 frames stacked |
| Observatory: Hartbeespoort | Magnification: 3x Tele Vue Barlow | Software: K3CCDTools and Photoshop |
| Mars Apparent Diameter: 19.2 " | Illuminated Fraction: 0.923 | Distance from Earth: 0.4882 ua | Central meridian: 14.00 |
The central meridian for the image of Mars at 1:12 is 349.65 and for the image of Mars at 2:30 is 14.00.
| Date: 15 July 2003 | Telescope: 10 inch SCT | AVI: 1/10 sec for 100 seconds at 5 fps |
| Time: 02:26 (GMT + 2h00) | Camera: Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000 | Processing: 100 frames stacked |
| Observatory: Hartbeespoort | Magnification: 3x Tele Vue Barlow | Software: K3CCDTools and Photoshop |
| Mars Apparent Diameter: 19.2 " | Illuminated Fraction: 0.923 | Distance from Earth: 0.4882 ua | Central meridian: 13.03 |
As a rule, I capture AVIs for at least 200 to 300 seconds long. This was just a quick test to prove to myself that I am not unnecessarily capturing too long AVIs.
Webcam astrophotography is like baking: If you take your stuff out of the oven too soon, you have unpleasant half-cooked results. With webcam astrophotography you must be patient too: you must let your AVI take its time to capture those quality frames you want to stack.
Just as you cannot cook something in triple quick time - by turning up the heat 3 TIMES the recommended setting, you cannot take quality astrophotography pictures by tripling the recommended 5 frames per second frame capture rate.