Moon, 19 February

[JamesF]

My efforts from last night. 59 from 120 exposures of 1/1000th @ ISO800 stacked in Registax v6, 450D and 127 Mak.

I do like the way that Copernicus is just peeking out of the gloom at us, especially it being the anniversary of his birth yesterday as well.

James

[JamesF]

That's almost exactly the same image (though taken at night) that I posted in another thread earlier today

I love daytime Moon shots, but I'd agree they're much harder to get right. The greatly reduced contrast and lack of dynamic range makes it quite tricky to bring out detail without making the image look unnatural.

James

[peroni]

That's a great image. I took some moon shots last night. A range on exposures at ISO100. Just got to figure out how to use Registax now before I can post the image

[JamesF]

That's a great image. I took some moon shots last night. A range on exposures at ISO100. Just got to figure out how to use Registax now before I can post the image

I use PIPP to crop the frames down to a more manageable size and then feed them into Registax. If you're doing it for the first time I'd recommend just stacking a few until you get it worked out as it can take some time for a stacking run with Moon images. Rogers' solar imaging tutorial may well help you with Registax as that part is pretty much the same. I'll see if I can find the link.

You may also be interested in another post I made this morning regarding exposure times:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/178223-examples-of-dslr-exposure-times-for-lunar-imaging/

James

[JamesF]

Here you go:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/153712-simple-white-light-solar-imaging/

Roger uses Registax v5 and the align points selection is slightly different in v6. You can click on the button and it selects align points for you rather than setting an alignment box up. Other than that though the process is very similar.

(Roger also uses JPEGs I think, whereas I use RAW files. That's one of the reasons I use PIPP, because Registax won't stack RAW files, but will stack TIFFs from PIPP.)

James

[David Smith]

Nice image James.

[Stargazer33]

Nice one James! And up the right way too.

[malc-c]

Very sharp and detailed image there...

Just to make things difficult for myself, I chose to image the Moon in the middle of the afternoon...

Phillips webcam - around 300 frames

[JamesF]

And up the right way too.

James

[dephelis]

Nice one James.

[peroni]

Here you go:

http://stargazerslou...-solar-imaging/

Roger uses Registax v5 and the align points selection is slightly different in v6. You can click on the button and it selects align points for you rather than setting an alignment box up. Other than that though the process is very similar.

(Roger also uses JPEGs I think, whereas I use RAW files. That's one of the reasons I use PIPP, because Registax won't stack RAW files, but will stack TIFFs from PIPP.)

James

Thanks for the top tips James. It sets me on the right path. I'm out again tonight as it's clear here, so I'll have a practice stacking later on.

I can't wait. I also got some Jupiter shots last night using my camera at prime focus. They are very small so it will be interesting to see how these come out also.

I'll post them both when done.

[peroni]

Here's my moon shot finally processed. Had loads of trouble stacking them.
I used PIPP as you suggested but Registax wouldn't align things properly with all my images (248 in total). This method from another forum finally worked...


1) save the images as .tifs in PIPP
2) open up registax 5.1, for alignment choose Default, and then check "Align using center of gravity", and then hit align.
3) move the bottom slider to the right and then hit limit.
4) hit optimize
5) in the stack tab, then go down to the "create AVI" section. Choose ".png", Choose "Maximum area", and then hit "Save Registered"

[JamesF]

Looks good. Could be worth giving it a go with Registax v6 too. I generally only stack the best 50% of the frames at most.

James

[peroni]

I think so. I did try v6 but had terrible trouble with both versions getting to align the images.

I had no trouble with a stack of 30 in my first attempt but when I tried to stack all 248 I had lots of issues.

Perhaps the best 50% would avoid the troublesome images. I'll try again later and see. Would be good to get some noticeable improvements.

[JamesF]

One of the things PIPP can do (might do by default -- I'm not sure) is re-order the images by quality, so the best quality ones come first. That can help weed out some of the poorer ones fairly easily (particularly ones obscured by clouds etc.)

If you aren't cropping the image down in PIPP to centre the image I'd do that too.

James