14 day old Moon - Up close and personal

jgs001

jgs001

Brian Cox
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John
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I decided it was about time I did another mosaic, it's been a while... so with my 80mm Refractor (600mm focal length) and a 2x magnifier I set about it with my QHY5v guidecam (think VGA webcam [8.5x crop factor, ish] and you won't be far wrong, but it's mono). I used a red filter to help with the seeing.

28 panes (think Panoramic).. each pane is made up of 250 frames from a 1000 frame AVI, with 1000 frame Dark and Flat callibration AVI's, processed in AVIStack, merged by hand in iMerge (the auto tools did not want to play ball :bang:) and tweaked..



Click for bigger (about half size).

For full size click here

Hope you all like it
 
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Absolutely Stunning.... Lovely piece of work!!!(y) The technic you have used is totally alien to me... 80mm refrector.. is this the Lens?? and then you used a 2x magnifier? In my limited DSLR knowledge, I would assume that this is equivalent to 80mm lens and 2x teleconverter? How does this differ from using lets say a 500mm lens with a 2x teleconverter? I really enjoy taking photos of the moon but cannot get them as detailed as what you have achieved. Thanks..

Raj
 
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Wow ............. Can't understand all the waffle, but hell, seems to work .............. brilliant
 
Thanks All...

Raj, sorry I forgot for a moment which forum I was on... Astronomers normally quote scopes by the diameter of the objective, as that defines the light gathering ability and resolution. The scope in use here has a focal length of 600mm, the 2x barlow, operates to double that to 1200mm, and the camera has a crop factor of 8.5x, so in 35mm terms, this is shot at 10200mm.

John, The setup took about 30 minutes, including getting the focus and exposure right. I often spend over 5 minutes making sure the focus is right. The capture took, probably about 45 minutes to an hour and the processing, about 2 hours.

Andy, if you want I can post a link to the full sized version ;)... the linked to one there is only half size...

Stig, Polar align the mount, balance the mount. Focus, this takes between 5 and 10 minutes to be sure it's as good as possible. Set exposure, check across entire surface for over saturated bits, reduce as needed. Double check exposure across the surface once set. Starting at the terminator, top or bottom, shoot a 1000 frame video (this was done at between 30 and 35 fps). Move the scope to point to the next section, ensuring 20 to 30% overlap, shoot another 1000 frames... and repeat until every part of the surface has been covered. Take each AVI, use the best 25% of the frames and stack to make a single image of that section, apply wavelets. Repeat for each pane. Then if you're lucky (and I wasn't) one of the automated panorama tools can stitch them all together... If not, as was the case last night, then I stitch them by hand in iMerge. Tweak curves and sharpen a touch... done.

For reference, here's the final image of the first pane, The full image is made up of 28 sections this size. I have not reduced it in size

astroqhy5v_00000-PART1_pp.jpg
 
Thanks very much for that... I would like to see the image in full size too if possible.. Look forward to seeing more of these...

Cheers

Raj
 
You're welcome... I've added a link to the first post for the full size
 
superb image, didnt understand a word of you explantion of how you done it though, way over my head
 
Brilliant - and thanks for the detailed explanation. I am finally beginning to understand it all :LOL:
 
It's a lovely shot and thanks for the explanation. I'm hoping to do something similar with my husbands telescope as one of my college options this year is astrophotography. He keeps telling me it's difficult but i'm going to give it a try anyway.
 
John, that's totally superb :clap:, I could sit for hours studying that.
Can you do a coloured version just to compare, sometimes I like the subtle colours.
Kevin :)
 
Wonderful!!! (y)

This is the first moon shot I have liked... and I LOVE it! :)
 
Great detail there. With that setup, would you be able to do the same thing for Mars, albeit on a smaller scale?
 
Wonderful shot. A lot of work.
I don't understand the techno jargon but the photo is just great.
 
Holy Crap!
I am sure I can see my house in the full version :D

Superb John absolutely superb (y)
 
Fantastic, John. Absolutely superb. Very well done. Your time and effort have clearly paid off.
 
still don't understand the jargon, but i like the final result!

Can you zoom in to show the US flag on the sea of tranquility? :LOL:
 
Lynton said:
still don't understand the jargon, but i like the final result!

Can you zoom in to show the US flag on the sea of tranquility? :LOL:
Click to expand...

With the detail he has already, I would want to see all the so called debris that should be up there... you know planes double decker busses etc :LOL:

Great shot BTW(y)
 
Absolutely incredible, quite simply the most detailed image of the moon I've ever seen. Well done on a truly brilliant capture.
 
Thanks very much everyone (y)

ladysue said:
Wow John that is amazing and the full size has such brilliant detail. Its hard to think that this a photo taken by someone on TP and not some international expert ( maybe you are?).:clap:
Click to expand...

Sue, defo not an expert... I could do a lot better if I could get a larger telescope, but they cost... lots of money, and then my mount would need upgrading, and that's even more than the cost of the scope... I'm just a lowly hobbyist doing this from his back garden for fun ;)

Julie1979 said:
It's a lovely shot and thanks for the explanation. I'm hoping to do something similar with my husbands telescope as one of my college options this year is astrophotography. He keeps telling me it's difficult but i'm going to give it a try anyway.
Click to expand...

And he'd be right ;)... Go for it I say, practice, practice, practice, and you'll get there. Make a checklist though (I really ought to)

Kevin H said:
John, that's totally superb :clap:, I could sit for hours studying that.
Can you do a coloured version just to compare, sometimes I like the subtle colours.
Kevin :)
Click to expand...

Sorry Kevin, no chance of a coloured one... show with a mono camera (and I don't have the storage space to use RGB), the AVI's for this used 30Gb of the 40Gb I have free on my laptop.

Janice said:
Wonderful!!! (y)

This is the first moon shot I have liked... and I LOVE it! :)
Click to expand...

Great, might make a convert yet ;)

michael23 said:
What A superb image John! Your next task is to name all the features
Click to expand...

Ok, how long have you got :D

Lynton said:
still don't understand the jargon, but i like the final result!

Can you zoom in to show the US flag on the sea of tranquility?
Click to expand...

Hmm.. maybe not.. the scope only has an 80mm aperture, and you'd need an aperture of over 200m to see the flag, that's assuming of course the atmosphere would actually settle long enough to see it. ;)
 
Digitall said:
Stunning as usual. does your mount move to follow the moon?
Click to expand...

I have various speed settings I can use...

Sidereal - Stars
Solar -...
Lunar -...
I can't remember the other one... I use a gamepad connected to the laptop to move it around to... much easier with a joystick :D
 
Great stuff there again John, i wanted the moon in a landscape shot this afternoon at 4.20 moonrise, unfortunately typical cloud well over the horizon, i wondered if you can tell me when the moon is at it's Biggest - Harvest moon only ? thanks.
 
Hiya John,

OMG you are a true inspiration to astrophotography!!!!

The images you produce are amazing and I love looking at what you capture of 'out of space' and share with us, especially the moon pics.

I hope this is a good year for you as far as clear skies are concerned because I can't wait to see what else you can get this year.

I have been waiting for a clear night to take photos for my moon journal, but unfortunately so far this year I have not had a clear sky so not sure that is going to take effect. Not to mention that I have so many other projects on the go at the mo.

I am sat looking at the moon right now as I type this, but there is just so much haze and fog about. I wish I knew of a way to capture the moon with all this 'clutter' because it could look beautiful in an image. Do you have any suggestions?

Cheers

Dawn :)
 
jgs001 said:
show with a mono camera (and I don't have the storage space to use RGB), the AVI's for this used 30Gb of the 40Gb I have free on my laptop.
Click to expand...
This is perhaps a stupid question...

Given that it's not really possible to use a DSLR to take hundreds/thousands of stills to be combined/mosaiced (is that a word?!) later - how about using the SLR in movie mode? The format might need converting but surely there will be utilities that can do that.
 
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