No go with Saxon, back out with SW Pro 150

[Aussie Dave]

I'm finding the Saxon 20325 is a difficult scope to image with. I don't have enough inward focus so I have to use a 2x Barlow and tonights effort was terrible with it. Visually it's heaps better, imaging is another story altogether. So I swapped over to the trusty Skywatcher Pro 150 however there was something about tonight, not sure what it was.

The night looked great but the moon seemed super bright and all exposures were difficult. I refocused after every 5 shots for a total of 40 and they all looked much about the same focus, little difference in any of them and quite poor, unlike the other night. I then picked the best 20 similar framed shots and pre processed.

ISO 100, 1/500th of a second. I managed to stack a record 17 images tonight in Registax then played around with them in Paint.net from lightly processed to over processed.

Another imaging session under the belt but no wiser for it...

[xtreemchaos]

nice shots Dave,thay are good with the moon being so full it hard to pick up fine detail.id be well happy with them.thanks for posting charl.

[laudropb]

Nice lunar images. As Charl says when the Moon is approaching full and lit overhead there are no real shadows present and very little contrast.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Full moon is always hard, as others have said. Nice set of images. I quite like the enhanced colour version. It shows the differences in composition of the surface quite neatly

[Astro Imp]

Agree whole heartedly with previous comments, very nice images for a nearly full moon.

I was out observing last night and found it very challenging, there were a few craters on the northern rim in shadow but after an hour or so I realised it would be better to call it a night and get inside in the warm.

[Aussie Dave]

Thanks all and note taken.

The only good thing that came from last nights attempt was that I'm getting better at taking similar looking shots for Registax. Later last night I also got to see the rise of Jupiter and 3 of its moons and possibly Mars? at around 3:30am from the East and South East. Could not see any surface details of either planet due to conditions and them being about 20 degrees above the horizon.

So I'm assuming in the next couple of weeks there will be 2 planets to view.

btw I did notice those craters on the very edge Alan.

[kev]

Dont be so hard in yourself. These atmospheric conditions between storms are not conducive to stable seeing.

Sent from my iPhone so excuse the typos!