Another Moon shot

[Scott]

Just been playing with an old (30 yrs) 200mm lens on my 1100d. its 10 1/400th sec at 1600 iso stacked in registax 5. any tips would be great thanks.

Scott

[Welrod50]

Hi Scott.

It looks pretty sharp for such an old(er) lens. I wonder, did you shoot RAW? Also, I'm wondering about the rationale behind shooting multiple shots and stacking. What about a single shot and then process in photoshop or similar. I say this as the highlights are slightly blown (only just though) and these would be easy to get back with a single RAW image and you might find it a bit sharper still as there will be now movements between stacked frames, however miniscule.

As it stands though, it looks pretty good to me.

Good luck

[JamesF]

Indeed it does.

I'd be tempted to experiment a bit with reducing the ISO setting and increasing the shutter speed. If you end up with the image a bit under-exposed then you can always stretch the histogram a little, but it may help preserve some of the detail nearer the limb. I'm guessing, I have to admit, as I tend to image the moon using my 127 Mak with a focal length of 1500mm and get a full-frame image, so I'm not really sure how it will play out when the moon is a much smaller proportion of the frame.

James

[Scott]

thanks for the advice Scott and James. To be honest Scott, I always save images in both formats but i seem to be having trouble stacking them in dss (although i didn't use it in this circumstance. i'll grab 1 of the raws and have a play with it . James, I'm up for any advice i can get on iso and shutter speeds. very new to this and just muddling my way through. the main reason i was even out tonight dodging the clouds was to see if i could get focus at infinity with the pentax /canon adaptor ring. Santa's bringing me some motors for my eq5 and i want to use the camera only before i hook it up to the scope. crawling before i can walk i suppose.

once again, thanks guys.

Scott. (the other scott in stoke)

[Welrod50]

Cool.

With regards to ISO/shutter speed if you play with the camera in daylight a bit you will get more of a feel for what we are on about. Faster shutter speeds require one of two things: either a higher ISO or wider aperture. If you shoot a tree outside for instance in daylight at f3.5 and ISO 200 you may find the camera will choose a shutter speed of 1/100th sec lets say. If you then put the ISO to 400, the shutter speed will increase to 1/200th say, as the sensor is twice as sensitive so it needs half the exposure. I could go on and on, but just use the camera in aperture priority first and get a feel for it and the astro photog will become easier as the principles are the same, just with slower shutter speeds and higher ISO values. The beauty of the moon is that it is quite bright in the first place which helps a lot. I must apologise in advance if I'm teaching you to suck eggs, but if you do need advice on ISO and shutter speeds then this is my intention. If I'm going over stuff you know already please ignore me!!

If you've shot the moon here at 1600 ISO and 1/400th sec, try sticking the camera onto Manual and shoot at ISO 800 and 1/200th. If it looks a little under or over exposed adjust the shutter speed accordingly. I would try to leave the ISO as low as possible really as it will improve sharpness and colour and have less image noise.

Let us know your thoughts

[Scott]

thanks Scott (feels like i'm talking to myself) I'll definately have a play with that. where in stoke are you?

[Steve Ward]

Nice start there ,

I would highly recommend continuing down the stacking road , I'd suggest "under exposing" as James has said , you can bring detail out from a dark image but an overbright shot is irrepairable.

Shoot in RAW but convert to TIFFS before stacking , JPEG is too compressed fr good detailed shots. You can Batch convert the frames in DPP .

Would suggest shooting about 100 frames and then going through them frame by frame in Registax and making a note of the very best frames ( the atmosphere will affect each frame differently and render some not worth using - pick out the really crisp shots detail wise )

Delete the "unworthy" frames and then Stack all the good ones , more the merrier really but 40-50 will suffice.

Then a 'gentle' play with the histogram and contrast until the Moon 'looks' right ( personal taste applies here ) and then start tweaking Wavelets to your taste ,

Less Is More , it's easy to overdo them.

Hope this is of some help ,

Steve.

PS , Roger (Bizibilder) has a great tutorial here . . . http://stargazerslou...-imaging/������ Solar Imaging based but the Stacking side is the same for Lunar shooting too.

[Welrod50]

thanks Scott (feels like i'm talking to myself) I'll definately have a play with that. where in stoke are you?

I'll PM you

[stem1989]

nice shot. I was looking at it this evening also was very nice tonight until a cloud came and ruined everything before I got fully set up for a photo!

[JamesF]

nice shot. I was looking at it this evening also was very nice tonight until a cloud came and ruined everything before I got fully set up for a photo!

The 127 Mak is perfect for lunar imaging with a DSLR. With a T adaptor the camera will go straight on the visual back and the image is not far short of filling the frame. With your EQ3-2 tracking you might have to tweak it back from the edge every so often, but you should be able to take, say, 100 frames in quick succession and stack the best for an excellent result. I'd recommend looking at APT (AstroPhotographyTool) or BYE (BackyardEOS) for controlling the camera. I use APT and have a plan set up so I just hit the button and it controls the camera to take 120 frames of 1/1000th @ ISO400 (I think -- from memory). If you take the RAW images and pre-process those with Chris Garry's PIPP program it will produce TIFF images that you can stack in Registax.

As an example of what's possible, some of my images are here:

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/169305-full-moon-28-november-2012/

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/164211-daylight-moon-6th-october/

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/163606-full-moon-29-september-2012/

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/163995-waning-moon-4th-october/

If you have a trawl through the lunar imaging section you'll find others that are at least as good. I really recommend having a go. it's a great way to see the Moon and something you can do when it's too full to make much other viewing/imaging possible. It's easy to take the Moon for granted or get irritated that it's nearly full when the it's the first clear night for weeks, but it is a fascinating object in itself.

James