My best lunar yet

[Aussie Dave]

I don't know what it was about tonight, maybe I'm getting better at imaging, maybe it was good atmospheric conditions, perhaps a bit of both but I had the best imaging session tonight. Visually it was great too.

I spent about an hour out before the temperature started to drop.

I had to spin the camera arount to get the half moon completely on the sensor.

Sky-Watcher Pro 6"

Nikon D3100

Single shots edited in Paint.Net.

[xtreemchaos]

great shots Dave, loads of lovely detail mate, nice shadowing on the high craters. well done. not a chance of me doing any imaging tonight with the weather. thanks for sharing  charl.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Good single shots. The last one seems a touch out of focus.

[Aussie Dave]

great shots Dave, loads of lovely detail mate, nice shadowing on the high craters. well done. not a chance of me doing any imaging tonight with the weather. thanks for sharing  charl.

The imaging Gods were definitley with me tonight Charl. I'll put in a good word for you.

Good single shots. The last one seems a touch out of focus.

That last one is closer to a full res image Michael to the rest of them. I think it's my camera but it did take much clearer shots tonight than usual. Then again it could be my dodgey eyesight when re-focusing.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

seeing can also be a problem. Some nights focus is elusive

[Astro Imp]

Nice work Dave, I especially like the second image but have to agree with Michael, the last shot does seem a bit off.

[laudropb]

Nice set of images. Thanks for posting.

[Aussie Dave]

I could've been a bit out with focusing, yet I've never owned a digital camera that takes sharp images when viewed at full resolution. The DSLR that I'm using at the moment seems to be the worst of the bunch. It's always been like that but tonight was better than the norm. Even my instant digital cameras are better than my DSLR.

I use live view (mirror up), the 10 second timer on an unmotorised mount and usually with some wind outside. Taking fine jpeg shots (yep, a big no no) as my post processing software can't seem handle a few full res jpg photos let alone the larger file size of the Nikons NEF RAW format which has it's own file compression any way. What I have noticed is that there's little difference with shutter speed when taking my shots from about 1 second up to 1/2000th of a second. It all sounds about the same mechanically when it takes the shot. I have better varying degrees of exposures by adjusting the ISO. Maybe I've overlooked a camera setting somewhere??

I bought this camera very Very cheap second hand so I can't expect it to be perfect. It has the lazy shutter problem which some of the Nikons are known for and get over time. The shutter spring is stretch so I do get a slight dark horizontal mark on some of my quicker exposure shots along the top which I have to crop out.

I am on the hunt for a decent colour imager, just not sure which to get.

Anyway, I'm just happy I get some results. That's good enough for me