Webcam Imaging of Mercury's Rotation, Amateur images of Mercury Options

[jsheff]

Hi, all,

A fellow amateur astronomer in the Boston area, John Boudreau, has been getting some neat images of Mercury, including some that show longitudes not mapped by Mariner 10. He's put together a few of them into a movie that shows Mercury's rotation and changing phase.

Before you go to check out the link, I'd like to remind you that this was all done using a backyard telescope and an inexpensive webcam - equipment readily affordable to hobbyists, using image stacking techniques that were pioneered by amateur astronomers, and that are now being refined by people like John. And perhaps most remarkably, his imaging was done from sites in the densely-populated suburb of Saugus, Mass. - not exactly an area known for dark skies and good seeing!

http://home.comcast.net/~jeboud/mercury.htm

- John Sheff
Cambridge, MA

[nprev]

My congrats as well!!! I'm absolutely astonished that these were captured while the Sun was up...

[Rob Pinnegar]

Something interesting about the animated Webcam series of Mercury images is that (from what I can tell) they include the part of the planet that contains the hypothesized "Skinakas Basin" which is supposed to be an impact structure larger than Caloris.

According to a couple of Internet sources I've been looking at (including the Wikipedia entry --- hopefully it's accurate), this basin is supposed to be centred just north of the equator at about 280 degrees west. Assuming that the central meridians given for the webcam shots use the same longitude system, it should be in the "middle" of the planet in the second and third images.

There does seem to be something there, but it's hard to tell what it is. Possibly just wishful thinking, I suppose.

Rob

[ed_lomeli]

Something interesting about the animated Webcam series of Mercury images is that (from what I can tell) they include the part of the planet that contains the hypothesized "Skinakas Basin" which is supposed to be an impact structure larger than Caloris.

According to a couple of Internet sources I've been looking at (including the Wikipedia entry --- hopefully it's accurate), this basin is supposed to be centred just north of the equator at about 280 degrees west. Assuming that the central meridians given for the webcam shots use the same longitude system, it should be in the "middle" of the planet in the second and third images.

There does seem to be something there, but it's hard to tell what it is. Possibly just wishful thinking, I suppose.

Rob

I'd been looking for a reference for imaging; perhaps this first link on page 32 will illustrate it better.

http://www.alpo-astronomy.org/publications...0Highlights.pdf

http://www.alpo-astronomy.org/mercury/Ksanfomality.pdf
http://sirius.bu.edu/planetary/mercury/baumgardner2.html

Best, ed