Comparison of Stacked images with dedicated CCD to Consumer Camera with HDR

[Andonyx]

I took many many Lunar Photos last night in an attempt to get prepared for the coming eclipse. I thought it might be interesting to post the results of a comparison between two cameras / techniques here. The consumer camera images have been cropped for easier comparison. They are from my larger album here:

For all photos I'm using a C90 Mak

Here is a shot of the sea of tranquility done two ways:

1st way is simply my cell phone camera held up to eyepiece zoomed in to 8mm. I'm using a Celestron 24-8mm zoom eyepiece, and simply holding my phone up to the eyepiece until I can see the image, and relying on the phone's auto-focus etc. This is a Nexus 5 phone with a mediocre camera, and I'm using HDR+ mode. (I'm told this is not a "true" HDR mode, just fancy software tricks.)

Considering how crude the method is, it's not shabby. If you're a beginner this is is a totally viable method to starting astro-photography, and it's how I'm getting started. Since I don't have a motor drive yet, it's also probably how I'll be handling the eclipse this week.

Here's a very similar shot, but this time, I have removed the eyepiece and put a Neximage 5 CCD in place. I'm binning 4X and not using a Barlow. I used Registax 6 and did a tiny bit of cleanup in Photoshop. Now, I know I can probably get way better, but this is literally my first try ever with the Neximage sensor and with Registax. I followed some on-line software tutorials and messed around until I got something I liked.

Now, again with the Cell Phone Camera on Grimaldi Crater:

And similar shot using Neximage 5 and Stacking:

My humble conclusion is that, the cell-phone afocal method is completely doable and a great cheap way to show friends and family what you saw the other night, But even with almost zero experience the dedicated CCD and stacking technique produced results with better detail, contrast and depth.

As always, your mileage may vary.

[RT65CB-SWL]

Hi 'Andonyx' and welcome to SGL.

An interesting comparison project and thank you for sharing your thoughts and views.

Wishing you clear skies for the eclipse and looking forward to seeing your photos.