1st attempt at moon mosaic. Any tips

[MikeH1985]

Been reading this forum for a while now and I am impressed with allot of the images posted, so decided to have a go myself.

I recently made a mosaic of our moon with 43 x 15s subs taken with xbox live cam through sharpcap, registax 6 and a 4 inch reflector on a manual eq mount.

Have any of the more experienced astro-photographers out there got any tips how to reduce glare and improve detail.

Any help at all would be much appreciated.

[long_arms]

When you say 15 second subs, do you mean a 15 second long avi, which was stacked through registax?

I think thats very good!! You should be very happy

What I like to do is check my focus on the terminator, where there is lots of detail.

Then check my settings on the brightest part which is obviously the south western limb here, to make sure it is not over-exposed. I have only just started getting the exposure completely right recently myself.

My only suggestion would be to check when filling the background black in photoshop/gimp, it seems that it has filled part of the right hand side.

Dan

[MikeH1985]

Sorry, should have explained myself better, all knew to this.

Yes they were 15 second long stacked through registax and stitched with Microsoft ICE, I did notice the darkness on the right hand side, I think it was me not positioning the scope correctly to get the whole moon captured as it was an early morning shoot and I wasn't concentrating.

Typical lousy weather, haven't been able to try with different settings since. Will keep playing with exposure, Thanks

[long_arms]

Thats alright!

Fair enough. It takes time to get used to the camera and settings, with this weather it must be very frustrating for you.

I would compare this image to the one that came out of Microsoft ICE if you did any sort of fill. Unfortunately, I find that with any phase other than a full moon (or near enough), the normal fill options go straight across the terminator into the maria. You have to change the threshold settings.

The next few days fingers crossed we're getting clear skies.

Dan

[RMcCallum]

Nope looks awesome to me

[MikeH1985]

Thanks for the replay guys, for a 1st attempt I am happy with it, in the next few days I will be getting a canon 30d off a relative so will be practicing with that.

Where I am it's forecast clear skies for the weekend so hopefully will get out and try again on the new moon

[long_arms]

I would be really proud with that as a first attempt!!

Yes fingers crossed for clear skies as always. I captured a mosaic of the crescent tonight, the moon tonight and the next few days is gorgeous!

Dan