Lunar with compact digital camera and webcam

[Aussie Dave]

The night sky was clear early on and the moon was calling.

I'm really liking afocal work, quick and very rewarding.

Taken with the Celectron Nexstar 8i, el-cheapo non branded 40mm Plossl and my Fujifilm 10mp compact camera ISO100, single shot, no processing involved.

 

While I had things set up, I also did some videos of various craters with the Xbox 360 Live Vision camera, 2X Barlow, UV/IR Cutoff filter.

Software used Autostakkert!2, RegiStax6 and PaintDotNet. Only around 100 frames stacked for each, conditions were not the best.

 

[happy-kat]

The single shot a very nice capture you got the moment of still view. But you can't beat the close up shots for getting in there.

[Aussie Dave]

11 minutes ago, happy-kat said:

The single shot a very nice capture you got the moment of still view. But you can't beat the close up shots for getting in there.

My compact digital camera takes better single frames than my DSLR HK. I have a handful of similar single shots from tonight with the compact that I might have a go at stacking tomorrow and get rid of some of that CA.

My webcams are on borrowed time as it is and have done their best. There's nothing more I can achieve from them. I've missed out on a couple of the older colour ZWO's recently, wasn't quick enough to snap them up.

[xtreemchaos]

lovely shots Dave,well done.thanks,charl.

[laudropb]

Great set of images. 

[nightfisher]

Very good indeed, the first shot is really sharp along the terminator 

[Aussie Dave]

3 minutes ago, nightfisher said:

Very good indeed, the first shot is really sharp along the terminator 

That's what I thought too Jules apart from the top, maybe I didn't have the camera squared off to the EP. The EP also has some edge performance problems, can't complain really, it was cheap.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Very nice disk and detail shots

[Astro Imp]

Nice set of captures, the first shot is showing loads of detail, well done.

[Aussie Dave]

Working on a 8 shot stack now but AS and Regi going Sad Panda on the data, no good stack yet...

[nightfisher]

23 hours ago, Aussie Dave said:

That's what I thought too Jules apart from the top, maybe I didn't have the camera squared off to the EP. The EP also has some edge performance problems, can't complain really, it was cheap.

I think the problem is most point and shoot camera`s have auto focus and i believe this causes problems, this is why i use a Pentax Optio T30 for A-focal as it has the holy grail of manual focus and a remote shutter control

[Aussie Dave]

@nightfisher my old Fujifilm compact seems to be a good all-rounder apart from the ability to take long exposures and it only goes up to 800 ISO. Not sure what type of sensor it has in it. I find that if I let the camera try to focus, it doesn't always do it and the shots don't come out that great. It's best just to press the button quickly and not let it have time to think about it, works 95% of the time that way.

I wanted to modify this camera, take the lens out but it turns out to be more trouble than it's worth, not an easy mod at all.

I've been thinking of just sliding it in to the focuser tube or Barlow. I been looking around for a suitable diameter piece of pipe for a snug fit. More testing needed for this compact digital camera.

[nightfisher]

I did a lot of A-focal and tried a few camera`s i really like the Pentax optio range as a lot of them have the manual focus, used with a camera adapter to hold the cam to the eyepiece they work well