M6 II refurb: Mars taken with BackyardEOS
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Larry Rexley wrote:
Carl LaFong wrote:
The refurb M6 II that I ordered a week or more ago to have a 2nd M6 II body arrived yesterday. Seems indistinguishable from new, except for the packaging it arrived in. Came with a (new?) charger and battery, plus a neck strap (ugh). The accompanying paperwork included a 1 year refurb warranty. It didn’t come with anything else, but I have plenty of lenses, and I got a like-new EVF from eBay for a great price, so ….
Oops, I forgot to get a memory card. My parts drawer didn’t have one, so I had to order one from Amazon. Ugh, again. It used to be that Amazon would deliver things in 2 days, but now it always takes a week … or more. OK, I live out in the boondocks, but the near-instant gratification of online ordering has become a thing of the past for me. I understand that people who live in metro areas in the US get things much faster, though.
I’ll wait a little longer to play with my new toy. Patience is a virtue - they say.
Ditto, got my M6ii today, new condition working fine.
I found a 'lost' and nearly empty 256 GB Sandisk Extreme Pro card while installing my new Monoprice $14 black glass monitor stand, the mem card had fallen under the scrappy Amazon box I was using for a monitor stand
Last night I decided to try for the planet Mars once again, with my Meade ETX-125 telescope and the refurb M6ii I just got.
I also finally decided to try the 'BackyardEOS' software --- a program which drives your camera through a USB connection from a Windows PC or laptop, and is designed for astrophotography.
I realized I could use the M6ii and BackyardEOS for planetary photography, since it has an option to capture AVI video to your laptop at 5x magnification --- which is pixel resolution! I have been using the M200 for planetary work since it takes cropped 4k video.
The software can be found here:
https://www.otelescope.com/store/category/2-backyardeos/
My results were extremely good, especially given a 5" aperture telescope which is normally considered too 'small' for good planetary imaging. I don't think I could get a better result with any other mirrorless camera or DSLR.
I think this really shows off the M6ii sensor's capability:
Mars near 2022 opposition, with the Northern polar cap and Sirtis major feature clearly visible. Taken on 12/8/2022: Canon M6ii, Meade ETX-125, 1.5x Kenko SHQ teleconverter, Captured with hi-res video using BackyardEOS software to a laptop at 5x magnification (pixel resolution), processed with PIPP, Autostakkert (1.5x drizzle; 1500 best frames of 4000 total), Registax wavelets, and DxO Photolab 6
For comparison, here's an image taken from Pic du Midi, where some of the best Earth-based pictures of Mars are taken. My image is taken in a different Mars season, so the Northern polar ice cap is visible, in the 2020 image below the Southern polar ice cap was more prominent as it was 'winter' in the Southern hemisphere of Mars:

The image is from this web site:
https://www.cieletespace.fr/actualites/l-opposition-de-mars-photographiee-depuis-le-pic-du-midi