Moon with a web cam.

[DazC]

Hi,

i've been trying to get a decent image of the moon close up for a couple of nights now. I'm using a web cam and sharpcap, then into registax 6.

I am just wondering what capture times (secs) people are using, as when i use 10secs or longer all i get is a mosaic of different shaded shapes.

I have heard that registax 5 may be better than 6 for some things, so i'll give that a try tonight.

Thanks.

D.C

[Cornelius Varley]

Capture times depend on the camera being used. A webcam such as the SPC900 may only give you about 100 frames at 10fps from 10 seconds or a DMK21 at 60fps would give you 600 frames for the same duration (I tend to use a duration of 1000 or 2000 frames with the DMK). If the problem is in Registax 6 you may want to try using Registax 5 and play about with the quality setting.

Peter

[DazC]

Thanks Peter, i'll give it a go tonight.

D.C

[TheThing]

10 seconds exposure is too long. It will just give you a blurred blob.

Using Sharpcap, set to 30fps and try and get a minimum of 500 frames. These will stack easily in R6.

I normally do mosaics of 15+ panels each of 200 frames stacked from 750 captured, roughly.

TheThing

[Snooper]

i use AMCap control and I rarely go over 5 FPS, even with the moon. I find that the image quality suffers from compression problems. I dont have to much of a problem collecting the frames I need as tracking mount makes like easier. When you process using Registax wavelets, try saving the stacked image, use the wavelet function sparingly and then save. Then do the rest in a graphics editor like GIMP2.

[dishmop]

Was just about to post something similar.. over 15FPS I think you start to get compression which degrades the quality. More FPS isn't necessarily better in this case.

[DazC]

Thanks for the replys everyone.

Less FPS, i wasn't planning on an early morning tomorrow, but now.............

Thanks again all.

D.C

[ArmyAirForce]

This is my first attempt at a mosaic of the moon, taken yesterday morning about 11am. I forgot to check the camera fps, and it ended up being 30fps, but with an AVI length of only 15 seconds, giving me 450 frames to compile. I used 200 of the 450 in each stack, using Autostakkert!2, then the twelve panels were joined in GIMP before a final tweak in Registax. I'm sure I can do better next time, but I'm still pretty pleased for a first go, and I didn't miss a bit!!

[TheThing]

That's a good result. 30fps works fine.

TheThing