First DSLR lunar shot

[jakeybob]

I tried jamming my Nikon d5000 into my scope (SW 200P) for the first time the other night to get a shot of the moon. This is the end result; eleven shots stacked/processed in Registax then curves etc adjusted in Aperture and Pixelmator.

I took >100 photos but only eleven were decent Probably because I was waggling the camera about like a mad thing. If nothing else this experiment has convinced me to invest in a T-ring adapter.

I'm pretty pleased with it though, might set it as my wallpaper

I wonder how much extra detail would even be visible with more shots in the stack...? I feel like it's verging on being "over-processed" as it is.

[Lodge271]

Very impressive. I am currently waiting on delivery of my T2 adaptor for my 550d T mount arrived yesterday. Did you use camera in manual if so what was your shutter speed and aperture settings?

If my first shots are anything like this I will be pleased.

Keep up the good work.

[Ulysses]

Fantastic image, Paul

[Snooper]

Nice! You should be pleased. t adapter makes life alot easier. Not sure on your camera but if decent sized chip you can have some fun post shoot by zooming in using photoshop or gimp etc. Suprising the quality that remains even at high levels of magnification. You cant get this with a smaller chip web cam.

[jakeybob]

The settings I used were:

ISO: 200

Shutter: 1/320

I took the photo at prime focus with no lens in place, so no aperture setting to speak of, and the camera was in Manual mode (indeed my camera will only release the shutter in manual mode if you don't have a lens in

A shutter speed of 1/200 looked ok too, but 1/100 blew out lots of pixels. I meant to experiment with different ISO settings but forgot. ISO200 is the lowest "normal" setting my camera has; below that it goes into "Lo1, Lo2" etc and I've never been too sure what they actually do to the gain at an electronic level so I ignore them.

I was actually quite surprised at how *long* the shutter speeds were. Given how bright the moon is (especially in a scope) I thought <1/1000 speeds would be needed.

Also, thanks for the comments folks!

[TaS]

That's a great image. I think you have just inspired me to try the same with my Canon DSLR.

[ubertank]

Great image mate. Very well done.

I got a relatively decent image of the moon recently by holding my camera up to a 200P, but without a T-Ring I feel it's more luck than anything else.

I'll be getting on order soon!

[JamesF]

I think that's very good given how you achieved it. To give you an idea of what it's like with more subs stacked, here's mine for the same day, based on stacking the best 50% or thereabouts of 120 subs. I'm using 1/1000th @ ISO800 with my 450D. Slower exposure times give me stacking artefacts because of atmospheric distortion and using lower ISO settings don't give as good a histogram fill as I'd like. There will be additional noise because of the higher ISO setting, but stacking should deal with a fair bit of that.

http://stargazerslounge.com/topic/178229-moon-19-february/

James

[farren272]

The settings I used were:

ISO: 200

Shutter: 1/320

I took the photo at prime focus with no lens in place, so no aperture setting to speak of, and the camera was in Manual mode (indeed my camera will only release the shutter in manual mode if you don't have a lens in

A shutter speed of 1/200 looked ok too, but 1/100 blew out lots of pixels. I meant to experiment with different ISO settings but forgot. ISO200 is the lowest "normal" setting my camera has; below that it goes into "Lo1, Lo2" etc and I've never been too sure what they actually do to the gain at an electronic level so I ignore them.

I was actually quite surprised at how *long* the shutter speeds were. Given how bright the moon is (especially in a scope) I thought <1/1000 speeds would be needed.

Also, thanks for the comments folks!

Hi Jakey,

Were you shooting the images in RAW mode? Wondering what I should do for the best?

Never used Registax so will be having a look at that. I guess RAW might not be beneficial while using that anyway.

Farren

[JamesF]

I always shoot in RAW. To my eye, JPEG is significantly lower quality and massively restricts dynamic range. Registax can't process RAW files directly however, so you need to use something like PIPP to convert the RAW files to TIFF first (and at the same time I crop off a lot of the unused frame and stretch the histogram a little).

James

[emadmoussa]

Very nice!

[jakeybob]

Hi Jakey,

Were you shooting the images in RAW mode? Wondering what I should do for the best?

Never used Registax so will be having a look at that. I guess RAW might not be beneficial while using that anyway.

Farren

Yes I always shoot in RAW (i.e. in general use as well as astronomy) as it gives you that extra latitude when making adjustments. I selected the "good" frames by eye (it was pretty obvious as they were all either *terrible* or *passable* )

As JamesF mentions above, I used PIPP (which can handle RAW files) to do cropping/centring and conversion to TIFF format. I then used Registax6 to stack the TIFFs and apply some wavelets. After that I used Aperture and Pixelmator for some contrast/levels adjustments.

[jakeybob]

I think that's very good given how you achieved it. To give you an idea of what it's like with more subs stacked, here's mine for the same day, based on stacking the best 50% or thereabouts of 120 subs. I'm using 1/1000th @ ISO800 with my 450D. Slower exposure times give me stacking artefacts because of atmospheric distortion and using lower ISO settings don't give as good a histogram fill as I'd like. There will be additional noise because of the higher ISO setting, but stacking should deal with a fair bit of that.

http://stargazerslou...on-19-february/

James

Nice photo! Also thanks for the thought on shutter speed and ISO. I hadn't considered that making the shutter faster than the seeing would be something to think about. The seeing was pretty good when I took the shot so I guess I lucked out. I'll keep it in mind for future snaps.

[twin-kle1007]

Great image, and brilliant detail.

[Olaf2]

That is a fantastic result! It's the kind Of thing I'd aspire to. Not sure how successful my D3100 will be but if I can get anything like that I'll be pleased.

[bntwillis]

So, how was the camera attached, or was it?

[Bigdaddyjeff]

I want a cameraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa..... :sad: :sad:

[Lenny147]

Great shot

[jakeybob]

So, how was the camera attached, or was it?

It wasn't attached; I unscrewed the 1.25'' section of my focus tube exposing the thread that would attached to a T-ring adapter (if I had one) and just tried to hold the camera tight against it. I adjusted the focus by looking at the live view on the camera's LCD. It was tricky to hold the camera still and in-focus, while also not moving the telescope and also depressing the shutter release, so only about 10% of the shots were usable, and most of those were from a single good burst of shots.

[davo]

Awesomely fine detail

[Pete Presland]

excellent shot, very nicely processed

[drummermandan02]

Nice clarity using your DSLR