First Attempt at Lunar CCD Imaging

[CKemu]

Recently acquired a StarShoot Solar System Colour Imager IV and have never used such a device to image - finally got a brief chance to last night.

I had a long day at work, so between 20:00 and 22:00 I had a power nap and then set off for the field behind my house with my gear in tow. After setting up and starting my drift alignment a cloud rolled in exactly where the Moon would rise, and stayed there until 00:45 - my frustration was audible at this point as the rest of the sky was perfectly clear, literally the only cloud in the sky was directly in front of the Moon - but decided to stay up to catch a glimpse!

Thankfully the cloud shifted and I plugged in the SSSSCIIV - focus was tricky due to wobble introduced every time I touched the OTA, that and the sky was boiling - I've never really done much lunar photography beyond a few DSLR shots and never "zoomed in" so much before. The view despite the boiling atmosphere was fantastic - reminded me why I do this stuff all over again!

Indeed this is the RAW video of my boiling sky - how would you rate the seeing conditions based on this video?

The AmCap settings remained untouched and I started recording some videos - indeed just seeing the Moon like that on my laptop inspired me to try streaming video to people, or putting it up on a big screen at a star party so multiple people can enjoy the view at the same time.

The night got progressively colder and the mist rolled in, low to start and then utterly obliterated anything below 10 meters - the dew that gathered on my scope was insane, and I decided to pack up before anything shorted out or it became utterly pointless to image anything but haze.

I've never used RegiStax either - indeed, blind mucking around at 4-5am is what created these images.

I'm not sure if my focus was off, my Registax skills being no existent caused problems, or the seeing conditions would be rated as "bad"? But in my inexperienced opinion, I didn't really get that much detail.

Also I don't know the Moon at all well and find a few online resources rather awkward to use - can anyone tell me if I captured any well known features?

[Stargazing_Cliff]

Nice awesome video.