WestCoastCannuck

First up is a colour effort of full disc with my Sony DSLR and 2X teleconverter on APM 140 - then downsized to 75%. I mainly did this one for my Sony photo forum where I have been notably absent for some time. (lunar is taken over my free time). The converter is very old and introduced a lot of CA which I did my best to remove in post. Still.... the Sony crew will like it. hehe Then, my full disc single panel disc with APM140 at prime with 183MM. Tracking was quite good this night and I was able to shoot at 16mp with only about 75 pixels clearance for a few minutes. Next up are my first light efforts with a new barlow. Its a Seibert Optics 1.5X "Telecentric". (similar to a powermate). Vixen VMC200L + 1.5X Seibert + 610nm + 290MM camera. A little oversampled.... but I think fine as is. Posted at full size output. Each shot the best 200 of 10000 frames. Processed with wavelets and deconvolution in Astra Image. C and C appreciated..... still not feeling confident of my Hi Rez efforts. And that is it! Working on last night's data now. Clear skies Mike

Yep. This 4 incher is a keeper. The full disc is lovely and tack sharp. The closeup is surprising! Really incredible what you can pull out of good long focal length 4 inch glass!

Outstanding colour!

Outstanding Neil! I think you have the Bresser dialed in.

Wow! What an achievement Neil! Outstanding does not cover it. The detail and smooth finish is the best of the best. You can cut out 50 closeups here that would stand up well on their own! Will be returning to have a much longer exploration later. Mike

Thanks so much Craig, Trevor and Angie! Was fun trying this out! Wider field seems to be the way to go for my seeing. lol Best regards Mike

Hey all. Finally got around to trying a planetary shot. Alititude was 28 degrees... shot from my driveway at the bottom of a valley. Like shooting through soup... by the look of the seeing anyway. Still though... I am happy with effort. Just mono.. don't have a filter set. Shooting particulars: APM140/7 + 1.4X barlow, 610nm longpass filter, ZWO ASI 290MM cam, iOptron AZ Mount Pro 2 minute clip... best 8% of 20,000 frames 3ms exposure... gain about 200 or so Software; Firecapture, AS!3, Deconvolution in Astra Image and finishing in Lightroom 6. The moons were pretty dim, I raised them in post. Clear skies! Mike

Thanks Trevor! It was a great morning for sure.

You know.... I have never tried shooting planets yet. lol. One day I will try it.

Thanks much Neil! I thought it interesting my last upscaled image from the 140 seems to surpass my 8 inch efforts. More evidence that 140mm is the sweet spot for my local seeing. Thanks Pete! :))))) Thanks much Trevor! Hope you are well! Thanks Sunshine!

Was a good start to the month. Had very little time.... left later this day for a few days vacay with fam. Full disc at prime with 140.: Then I tried and failed at one attempt at a higher rez mosaic. Took the top limb twice though.... and was great both times. Something went wrong on my much larger bottom panel. Both top parts here: The larger shot.... And a colourized version Runnning out of time, I switched to the Vixen and left both the 1.4X and the 183 on and went for ROI closeups. Results.... OK. They are both the best 300 of 5000 frames. VMC200L + 183MM + 520nm filter. All shots uploaded above and below are 100% size. All processing done with PIPP, AS!3, Astra Image and Lightroom. EDIT... just for fun, to compare with the above two 8 inch shots... here is the same 140 shot from earlier above redone with 1.5X drizzle. Clear skies!! Mike

Another winner Neil! Love the details and contrast.... has a great overall look with that detail.

Lovely image Neil! Superb processing imho.

Thanks Pete! It was a great morning. :))))) Mike

Will send you PM... just heading out for a couple days with fam.

You are very welcome Neil!! We are always learning. On my side of the fence.... I see the work you and others do on your closeups...... and I want to learn Registax and wavelets. LOL Maybe I will get you to show me your tricks! LOVE that last Clavius. I hope one day I can do one like that. Actually... Astra HAS wavelets. I have had no luck with it. Got some more data this morning.... but off with my fam for a few days shortly. Cheers!! OH... btw, when shooting my closer stuff the settings change quite a bit again. lol. Can fill you in later..... but you already do much better with wavelets I think. Mike

Absolutely stunning Neil. Not just Clavius but a fabulous moonscape. For me processing looks awesome.

As Trevor once commented to me..... I also find processing to be a bit of a dark art. The seeing and conditions are different every time.... and we shoot at different scales, with different power and filters. No such thing as "stored" settings. Having said that.... I do have a sort of method now after several years of this. The "simple deconvolution" I use in Astra has several sub settings. For "type" I use "Van Cittert". I don't like "Lucy Richardson" (in astra). For "Blur Kernal Type" I typically use gaussian.... though when the data is REALLY good I sometimes go for Lorentzian.... its lovely but more subtle. I set the blur unit size on a single pane APM shot to between 1 and 1.3 for good data. For that last single panel I did on the 28th... it was 40 iterations of "Van Cittert" at 1.2 blur unit size, gaussian and a strength of 1.5. I did not record my settings for the mosaics. But usually 30 iterations of about 1.3- 1.5 blur unit size, gaussian, Van Cittert at a strength of 1- 2 then about 10 iterations at a little less blur unit size and a strength of perhaps 0.5-0.8.

Cheers Neil! The 245 will kill the 140 on closeups in similar seeing. lol. You are plenty undersampled in your mosaic "down" to the potential resolution the 140 can do. The extra light in equal seeing will most certainly give you a cleaner, sharper image. But... as you say, in certain areas I am very close! I don't do wavelets. May try one day. In Astra I will do levels first, perhaps a little contrast, then I use deconvolution... lightly, usually two rounds with the the first being 90 % of the work, and a faint touch in the second. I rarely use unsharp mask in Astra. I find the IMPPG implementaion FAR better for that..... but rarely use it unless I process with ONLY IMPPG. After deconvolution in Astra I will usually do a slight edge sharpening in Lightroom..... and some final contrast/shadows perhaps. For my single pane work with 140 very undersampled, I do the same, though the settings are VERY different for a good result. Can use much more aggressive processing and still come out clean. Clavius and the other closeups are with the Vixen. But thanks! I really like the shot.

Only did one whole moon shoot.... and it was this 3 panel mosaic with the APM powered up to 1.4X in green 520nm and 183MM camera. Very interestingly to me, Neil did a superb mosaic at about the same time, and at the same scale with his big 245 Newt and a different camera. (See his "Orion Rework" at 100% - the third and last of his images in post). As I often do, I added a colour tone to mine.... maybe for a better comparison I will post another in black and white. Viewed at 100% they are very comparable to me on my 4K monitor but his bigger aperture wins for the details and noise/artifacts when zoomed in past 100% - mine is close though! Pretty good for a 140mm instrument going up against a much bigger 245mm at the same scale! LOL Very fun to have two such mosaics shown in the same orientation at the same scale shot from different parts of the world of our beloved Luna. :)))))) Following the mosaic, I have posted just a couple of my higher rez attempts with my Vixen VMC200L. In order to significantly surpass the 140, I have just realized I must power up the 200mm Vixen to its max..... and frankly, my seeing does not seem to support this most often. Still though..... I am pretty darn happy with my Clavius capture. A personal best. The mosaic at 100% A few closer attempts at maxing my Vixen VMC200L. With 520nm at F13.6 and the 290MM. Hadley.... Vallis Alpes My best Clavius.... happy with this one. A lessor Clavius.... but a nice decent view of the southern limb area. Clear skies!! Mike

The dreaded missing pieces... lol. I know the pain! 😄

I FAR prefer the full size - myself I would not have posted the other two lol. On my 4K monitor it looks fabulous. Tones great. Details fantastic. Great work! Mike

Thanks much Michael!

Thanks Craig! Yeah.... the 140 at prime well undersampled in green almost never disappoints. lol I should always do one. I did not yesterday morning and I regret it. Mike

Thanks Neil. Though not my fave.... I had already thought the last image was perhaps the best from the Vixen of the night. Funny enough..... it really WAS my very last image - taken about 1 hour after sunrise as the sun was rising above the house across the street and just licking my scopes. As to processing.... I meant to mention. I have gone back to Astra for everything. Slower, more work.... but perhaps smoother results. IMPPG will remain in the toolbox though. Cheers! Mike