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Moon, 27th April

JamesF

By JamesF
in Imaging - Lunar

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JamesF

JamesF

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Fairly challenging conditions last night for getting the subs for this image. Clear skies were forecast, but with a stiff gusting breeze and the Moon wasn't going to clear the roof of the barn until about 12:40am, by which time cloud was starting to build up. I managed 85 frames before high cloud drifted over and whilst I was waiting for that to clear two more layers of cloud came stomping down from the north west and just appeared to get stuck over Taunton, obliterating any view at all. I gave it twenty minutes or so to see what would happen, but the answer seemed to be "nothing" and I called it a night.

So, 85 frames of 1/1000th @ ISO800 from the 450D/127 Mak to start with, preprocessed in PIPP and then I dropped about ten due to dark cloudy patches and stacked 41 of what remained in Registax v6. The image is noisier than I'd like, but normally I'd be stacking 50% more frames. I still had to have several attempts to get a stack I was happy with.

Getting the image in the frame was a real struggle too. It would barely fit. Checking this morning it seems that perigee is tonight and it's obviously making a difference to the image size.

moon-2013-04-27-2-small.png

James

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JamesF

JamesF

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In fact, compare last night's image to this one taken on 21st February. The image scales are exactly the same in both cases as are the overall image sizes. There's a clear difference in the amount of sky around the top and bottom of the image in the two.

moon-2013-02-21-small.png

James

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Zendrix

Zendrix

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great pictures james! I myself tried around one hundred of them yesterday, but when i try to stack them in registax, the final result is always 2 moons overlapping, something weird... I know the basics of DSS to make my way around nebulas and stuff, but i just cant seem to grasp registax on stacking RAW images. Any suggestions? Thkx

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JamesF

JamesF

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great pictures james! I myself tried around one hundred of them yesterday, but when i try to stack them in registax, the final result is always 2 moons overlapping, something weird... I know the basics of DSS to make my way around nebulas and stuff, but i just cant seem to grasp registax on stacking RAW images. Any suggestions? Thkx

Have you seen my posting about lunar imaging with a DSLR? That might help if you've not read it. Otherwise I'll see what I can think of.

James

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AstroFrog

AstroFrog

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Lovely image! I looked out around midnight to see whether it was worth going out to have a crack at the moon / Saturn, and commented on just how huge the moon looked! Too much cloud and a stiff breeze here though so stayed inside in the warm!

Great picture, I love seeing these lunar images!

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Steve Ward

Steve Ward

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Apart from dropping the ISO to 400 to lose a lot of the noise . . . :rolleyes:

Going to try with the built in NR set to ON next time myself , makes next to no difference time-wise on a couple of hundred short subs , unlike doubling 300s exposures . . .

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JamesF

JamesF

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When I've got enough time to do a few runs I shall do 120 each of 1/1000th @ ISO800, 1/500th @ ISO400 and 1/250th @ ISO200 and see how they turn out. I've tried it before and wasn't happy with the results of the slower exposures, but it's not impossible that improving technique and more knowledge and experience means what didn't work then will work now.

James

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Steve Ward

Steve Ward

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True enough.

My guess is that it'll be seeing dependent , that said though with the Solar side I'm down to 1/250 @ ISO 200 with the big Mak + 1.8 x , far from perfect but in general I'm still getting a lot of good crispy subs , it just means a bit more pot luck as far as percentage of good from bad .

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Zendrix

Zendrix

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Have you seen my posting about lunar imaging with a DSLR? That might help if you've not read it. Otherwise I'll see what I can think of.

James

thanks james, ill give it a look! I changed to avistack though, seems its pretty more intuitive and accurate to me, but im still inexperient in both of them to make judgements. The problem is im stacking around 50 images in avistack and as soon as i get to the frame stacking, my laptop just crashes (unable to allocate memory: array). And its not a bad laptop, I have a Toshiba A-300 with 4Gb RAM. Now i've tried on a 64-bit Win7 with 8GB RAM and its taking me 2 hours, minimum, for 50 pics (Large size of a Canon 1000D)...

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Zendrix

Zendrix

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Hey James!

Thanks to your post, i was able to stack 44 pics. It was my first attempt at stacking moon pics. im quite pleased with the result, but that is because its my first.. If you have some input, i would definitely enjoy hearing it. Here it is: http://stargazerslounge.com/uploads/gallery/album_1788/gallery_23812_1788_300439.jpg

Thanks,

Rui

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JamesF

JamesF

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I think you have every reason to be pleased with that one. Keep it up. New features show up all the time as they get near the terminator and are lit more from the side than from above.

James

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nameunknown

nameunknown

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All wonderful images. A little over half a "world" hanging there like a photographers dream in the sky, and even walked/driven about on over half a lifetime ago. If SGL ever gets members from another star (OK - bit slow on posting responses) they might well be dead jealous of us Earthlings. But I guess, from past experience, we may have something in common...

Xyereferbfye: GREETINGS EARTHLING. WE ARE TOURISTS FROM THE PLANET FVGEFEH. CAN WE PHOTOGRAPH YOUR BEAUTIFUL MOON?

Indian Antiquities Commission: Yes, but please fill in this for first (in triplicate) and pay 10 rupee

Xyereferbfye: EARTHLING, WE HAVE NO "RUPEE", WILL YOU TAKE GALACTIC EXPRESS?

Indian Antiquities Commission: No, cash-money only and fill in the form

Xyereferbfye: EARTHLING, WILL YOU TAKE THIS 10KG OF TRANSPARENT CRYSTALLINE CARBON?

Indian Antiquities Commission: No, cash-money only and three copies of the form please

Xyereferbfye: EARTHLING, WILL YOU TAKE THIS SLIGHTLY USED INTERSTELLAR DRIVE WE HAVE SPARE?

Indian Antiquities Commission: No, are you trying to bribe me?

Xyereferbfye: NO EARTHLING, WE ARE ENGAGING IN INTERSTELLAR COMMERCE, AND WOULD ALSO LIKE TO TAKE A FEW PICS OF THE PLANET WITH THE RINGS

Indian Antiquities Commission: That is extra, and a different office

Xyereferbfye: SO EARTHLING, HOW ABOUT A DENEBIAN CIGARETTE, HAND ROLLED ON THE THIGH OF A LANGUID LIZARD LADY OF DENEB IV

Indian Antiquities Commission: Ok...

P

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