First moon image

[Woolleson]

Thought I'd post my first moon photo. After a reasonable attempt at Jupiter I went for an easy option being a work night and grabbing a much missed clear night.

Image taken on a spc900nc with IR and no Barlow, 1 min capture stacked and processed with registax 6. Got a few more but as its late will leave them for a brew and biscuit time.

Any critique is welcome!

Just a question, is there any way of getting a full moon image with the spc900 and my SW150p? Or would I have to go the "mosaic" route?

[Skybrowser]

Mosaics are fairly straightforward - you soon get the knack.

[Woolleson]

Had a little go tonight from some images I took, your right not to hard.

Did have to "fill the gaps" because didn't have full data. But quite pleased.......

Will try again though, found it quite a rewarding task

[bm1980]

good effort for a first attempt,keep at it and you will see improvements every time your out

Regards

Ben

[Woolleson]

Thanks Ben, think I'm getting hooked

[Rustmonkey]

A good effort. hardest part is making sure you have the coverage.

[Woolleson]

Very true, thought I had till processed he data and holes appeared

[Hightower]

How long did your shots take to process in Registax? I took some 90 second moon shots tonight using the Xbox webcam mod, and it took about an hour to align and now it reckons about 40 minutes to stack.

Seems slow, or is this normal?

[Zul]

Fantastic start!

[Rattler]

Very nice. Can I ask what settings you used?I've got a 200p and an SPC900.I can't get a decent view through the cam. On the computer looking through the cam there is np detail at all. All I can make out if the various shades.

[Woolleson]

Hi,

I'm away at the the moment but these are basically my settings ( from memory). I took about 7 images at 60 seconds, but as I said really should have done more. I had loads of dead areas in the image and bad data, so spent sometime cloning and patching in photoshop. Next time I'll at least double the the data captured, never have enough !

Also I veered of to Jupiter for a bit, really should of stayed focus as the exposure went all **** up!

For the capture, basically used a 32mm plossi to find the moon, whipped out the eyepiece and then popped in the webcam. Took some time to refocus but once it was nailed just locked it off. Best to turn up the gain to and focus near the terminator, then drop it to near zero and then just tweak the exposure and gain till you get it right.

I manually tracked them, not to bad for the moon. Harder for other planets!

Each image was processed in registax, just selected key alignment points around the circumference and craters and kept it all on auto, each align and stack took no more than 1 min for each image. To do the lot about 5 mins, then put the Images through microsofts ICE, nice bit of software that stitches them automatically.

Hardest part was trying to correct my initial lack of data and exposure problems in CS5, this took a good 30 mins!

These are my rough settings, in Sherwood forest at the mo (cloudy ) so most from memory:

Skywatcher 150P - EQ3-2.

Phillips NPC900NC, adaptor tube and IR filter.

Sharpcap with these settings:

Colour space yuy

10 FPS

Resolution 640

Colour enable 0

Gamma 0

Saturation 100

Contrast 63

Brightness 66

Hope this helps

Jason

[Woolleson]

High tower, I'd say that's not normal, mine took less than a minute. Could be due to your processing power, or maybe need to reinstall registax?

Not sure to be honest, but don't seem right!

[Hightower]

@Woolleson - I got to work and tried the same there, and the images took less than a minute each. I have an i5 processor at work, but a semi-decent i3 on the laptop at home and 4GB RAM - I can't see the laptop being the issue, however it is so cluttered now I think it's time to wipe. Will try a fresh install of Win7 and see what happens.

[basher0010]

i got a quite good image using microsoft ice to compile the individual pics into a Mosaic from my converted ms lifecam studio hd

http://stargazerslounge.com/observing-lunar-solar/178529-my-first-2-moon-pics-using-microsoft-ice.html

[Rattler]

Cheers for that. Do you get a clear detailed image through the cam on your screen?

[Woolleson]

@hightower, your laptop should eat it. Maybe theres an issue with your install, you could try using another 4 or 5, or even avistack

[Woolleson]

i got a quite good image using microsoft ice to compile the individual pics into a Mosaic from my converted ms lifecam studio hd

http://stargazerslounge.com/observing-lunar-solar/178529-my-first-2-moon-pics-using-microsoft-ice.html

Fantastic detail, you could be flying over to land!

[Woolleson]

Cheers for that. Do you get a clear detailed image through the cam on your screen?

Sure, the image is very clear. Not as good as viewing through the eye piece of course, but you can see all the rills and craters.

Sort of surreal, sat there watching the moon on your screen. Like you are the link Between the vast distance, total control of the "movie"

[Rattler]

See this is my problem. I can't get any detail. I can just see the shape and the different shades of grey.

[Woolleson]

Sounds like a focus problem, you have to be very accurate and takes some time. Also if the gain or exposure/brightness might be two high. Take it you have an infrared filter on the nose piece?

My gain is set to nearly zero, the moon is so bright any higher you will just get over exposure no detail.

Do you have a pic/vid so we can see?

[basher0010]

Fantastic detail, you could be flying over to land!

thanks very much i messed with the cam settings a bit but the capture was just a series of snapshots in sharp cap no stacking at all just iced the lot and thats what came out very pleased with the result though

[basher0010]

See this is my problem. I can't get any detail. I can just see the shape and the different shades of grey.

just a thought have you got the software that came with the web cam running in the background i found i had and needed to change the settings in mine to manual all the way as they kept taking charge even though i was using sharpcap auto focus setting and auto exposure were the culprets in the ms lifecam software it took me ages to realise what was going on once id unchecked the boxes sharp cap was able to take charge..

[Rattler]

I don't have lifecam installed so that's not the problem. I do have an IR filter on the nose piece. I've messed with the settings. It does seem to be focus related.

[Woolleson]

I don't have lifecam installed so that's not the problem. I do have an IR filter on the nose piece. I've messed with the settings. It does seem to be focus related.

Another thought, when you say you can only see shades of grey. There will only be shades at the sun lit side of the moon. The detail can really only be seen at the terminator.

Basically the shadow gives contrast, if you look at my first it is at the south by the terminator. The stitch has only greys and no detail as you move to the lit edge.

Try focusing on the terminator, I could be off the mark though ......

[Rattler]

It's the same all over mate even at the terminator. I've tried it with barlow, without and with the lens off the barlow to make it a spacer but all the same. It's really frustrating.