Kon

Insane amount of details. Nice processing as always.

Excellent images. The full resolution is fantastic!

Another ISS pass at 60 degrees last night. I managed a few good frames despite the so and so seeing. I need to find the time to put the whole capture in an animation, but for now some of the best frames.

Apart from the several modules, I seem to have got the canadarm2 as well! 12" Flextube Goto, asi462mm, IR pass filter, 2.5x televue powermate. Manual tracking.

Excellent animation and the prominence looks really nice and delicate.

Beautiful image! Very nicely processed.

Really nice set of images under not so good conditions.

You can either try source a skywatcher 2" tube or add a Baader clicklock adapter.

https://skywatcher.com/product/2-eyepiece-holder-for-dob-50mm/

If you are after 1.25" then

https://www.rothervalleyoptics.co.uk/skywatcher-2-125-eyepiece-adaptor.html

1 hour ago, Mikel56 said:

That’s an impressive photograph, much better than my recent efforts.

I’m new to photographing the moon, anything in fact. Is the photograph a single shot or created from several photographs ? Is the view that which is seen in the eyepiece or enlarged in the subsequent processing?
 

I enjoyed the detail of your photograph,

Regards

Thanks Mike. This is from a 1.5min video at 135fps. I stacked 5% of 7000 frames. Then some sharpening in registax and Astrosurface. This is a crop from the full sensor and reduced to 75%.

I could see some of the details at the eyepiece too. The seeing wasn't great to pull more details and that's why I had to use the IR pass filter.

1 hour ago, Roy Foreman said:

Nicely done. I was doing the same as you last night - imaging between passing clouds and through haze. Did some close ups of major craters including copernicus. Have yet to see how well I did but your image will be a good benchmark to judge by.

It wasn't great last night. It is looking good for tomorrow but nearly full moon so hard to find features to image. Looking forward to what you got.

A quick session between passing clouds. Copernicus with a tight crop to give a closeup view. Skywatcher 300P Flextube goto,  asi462mm, IR pass 685nm, 2.5x TV powermate.

1 hour ago, bosun21 said:

Nice images Kostas. I was out at the same time with the intention of imaging the moon as well. However I should have started earlier in the fading light as the moon was just disappearing behind some trees. I need to get my actual skyline put on Stellarium ( once I find out how to do it).

Thanks Ian. We need to grab these rare imaging opportunities. The weather is looking so and so at the moment so you could give it a try with the IR pass.

To me it's a relief that I have my tracking back. I also got the new motor today but I will hold on it until I have issues again.

44 minutes ago, Mr Spock said:

Nice detail. It's a fascinating area to look at.

I agree, especially when illumination is favourable.

48 minutes ago, Astroscot2 said:

I really enjoy viewing and imaging this part of the Moon , Youve captured it well Kostas.

Was out last night also trying some closeups but the seeing was poor, tonight is my last chance to image the moon before it gets too low to image at a decent phase, swapping the newt out for the refractor this weekend for some solar imaging.

 

Mark

Thanks Mark. I have not done much imaging of this region before as I am always drawn on the craters near the centre. Looking down the eyepiece I always enjoyed this region as you can make out the ridges but I was never satisfied with the  images, but flipping to Dob view it gave me the same feeling. I think it worked well and I will revisit at some point.

Looking forward to seeing your solar images.

I captured the southern craters of the moon last night and by flipping it 180 degrees, it gives it a rather close perspective. Skywatcher 300P Flextube goto,  asi462mm, IR pass 685nm, 2.5x TV powermate.

Craters at the southern side of the moon (15/05/24). The image has been flipped 180 degrees to give a better perspective. Skywatcher 300P Flextube goto,  asi462mm, IR pass 685nm, 2.5x TV powermate.

Craters at the northern side of the moon (15/05/24). Skywatcher 300P Flextube goto,  asi462mm, IR pass 685nm, 2.5x TV powermate.

7 hours ago, bosun21 said:

Another excellent capture of the ISS. It's not the capturing itself, but the actual tracking that puts me off attempting this. How many frames did you capture Kostas? and how do you intend to try and track it? Your image does give me a lot of incentive though, showing what is possible.

I forgot to answer the frames. 5000 out of 6000 had it but only 40 were of good quality to stack together. I start capturing when it's around 75-80 degrees up. The seeing wasn't great last night even in IR. I focused on the moon and it was boiling.

6 hours ago, bosun21 said:

Another excellent capture of the ISS. It's not the capturing itself, but the actual tracking that puts me off attempting this. How many frames did you capture Kostas? and how do you intend to try and track it? Your image does give me a lot of incentive though, showing what is possible.

Thanks Ian. If you have a well aligned RACI it is pretty 'easy'.

For the auto tracking, skywatcher has a satellite app if you look at their website. A friend has been helping me to setup. I'll report here if I can make it work.

3 hours ago, Clarkey said:

Great image once again. I agree with @Nik271, stationary targets are definitely my forte!

Auto tracking - now that will be impressive if you pull it off with the Dob. I assume you got your motor problem sorted?

Thanks. I am very excited to try the auto track.

Yes motor is working fine now, although I still got one as a spare since they are hard to get hold of.

3 hours ago, LukeTheNuke said:

Wowsers, that's officially amazeballs. Well done! 

PS I zoomed in on one of the white background pixels and did a bit of deconvolution (Lucy-Richardson) and came up with this:

Thanks. I completely missed this 🤣

4 hours ago, Nik271 said:

Very detailed, Kon, well done!  I saw it passing overhead at dusk last evening and for a moment was tempted to try to follow it manually with my Skymax 127 but I just knew I wont be able to keep up with it. The Moon is much easier 🙂 

Thanks Nik. I think you should give it a try. This week we have 2 passes every 1.5 hrs apart at night.

International Space Station at 87 degrees from last night. This is possibly my best capture of 2024 with the 12". This is still manually tracked but I am setting up for autotracking that I hope to test this weekend. 12" Flextube Goto, asi462mm, IR pass filter, 2.5x televue powermate.

9 minutes ago, Roy Foreman said:

Actually I wasn't thinking in terms of using IR with colour camera, but if one did then would it be the case that blue and green cells would not receive any light ?  IR does help, but I agree that under UK skies turbulence is still very much in evidence. 

Yes effectively the camera behaves like mono. I haven't seen a difference between my IR with the 462 mono or colour but again both have the same response in IR (I use the mono for UV imaging).

6 minutes ago, Roy Foreman said:

I agree. Also a colour camera may not give as fine a resolution as monochrome. Supposed to be clear here tonight so I might dust off my C8 and see what I get out of it

If you refer to IR imaging  that is not true as you only use a narrow wavelength. You should be able to pull more details in either colour or mono with rgb filters. IR might perform better under bad seeing as its wavelength is not affected as much from the weather (although my IR is ofter 'boiling' under UK skies).

16 minutes ago, michael.h.f.wilkinson said:

I have checked collimation and it cannot be far off if you get albedo spots on Ganymede. I didn't use IR on the above image (this was taken with my ASI182MC, and it has subtle colour). 

Looking at your image above, I think it is more the case of bad seeing (if you think collimation is good). You should be able to get a lot more out of your C8 under good conditions.