SuperMoon November 13 2016 (6 Panel Mosaic)

[nucdoc]

 

Here is my best attempt at the Supermoon earlier this month. This was a 6 panel mosaic, shot with a ZWO 174M, using a 6nm Ha filter, and TMB 175.  I am new to lunar imaging and always have had trouble eliminating the intense bright spots without losing image contrast, especially with a full moon.  

Since I did not want to miss getting some images of the supermoon I settled on the Ha filter only because it was seemed to give the best images.

 

What filters are best to use, especially when trying to shoot a full moon to avoid over-exposure and still have good contrast?

 

Thanks

 

Mark

 

[Pete Presland]

Very nicely done.

[nucdoc]

Thanks Bunnygod1 !

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice shot. Personally, I do not use any filters. I usually set exposure such that extremely bright features (like crater Tycho and surroundings) do not saturate. The trick is to use the histogram feature of FireCapture (or similar programs). I fill the histogram to around 90% at those points on the lunar surface. Once chosen, I then expose all the AVIs or SER files in the same way over the entire mosaic. After stacking 100-250 out of the usual 1000 frames I shoot for each pane, the result is 16-bit (TIFF, for preference). This bit depth is preserved both in sharpening in ImPPG, and stitching in MS-ICE. Applying curves (in 16 bit) in ImPPG can be used to modify the contrast. My result is here