Novice - first image of the moon

[furrysocks2]

My wife can't get excited enough to even come up and look at my first image of the moon, so I'm posting it here instead. 

 

I've got a 3" cheap reflector, removed from its mount, bolted to a joist hanger, clamped to a piece of timber, perched out the roof window and pointed at the moon.

 

 

The camera I'm using is a 1.3MP zc301 from ebay  - it's got an IR filter in the 0.91" nose, and a 1.25" adapter that screws over it. I tried without the filter first but took the shots with it on. I'm running a Windows 7 VM on a linux host, passing the webcam through as a device. SharpCap preview kept freezing and I thought it was over but when I actually came to image, it worked without issue.

 

I tried to focus best I could, and took a couple of 10 second videos (I could only keep it in frame for that length of time), then fat-fingered Registax to give me this. 67 frames, I think.

 

 

First time I've looked at a moon atlas too - good to learn something - I think the two craters in the center just near the boundary are Eratosthenes and Copernicus. I think I can just make out Gay-Lussac.

 

The idea with the joist hangar is to make a motorized eq mount, drive it with OnStep, and somehow align it when it's hanging out of the window. I'll keep going with this camera for a while - no sense in spending yet.

[Taff]

Weldone with your capture of the moon.Mark

[furrysocks2]

46 minutes ago, Taff said:

Weldone with your capture of the moon.Mark

Thanks, Mark.

I've seen better "firsts".

 

[Peco4321]

1 hour ago, furrysocks2 said:

I've seen better "firsts".

Yes but a first is a first all the same and if you hadn't bothered it would have been a never, if you know what I mean!!?

Well done I'm sure the most experienced on here will confirm, there's always things to learn and improve on. 

 

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Nice first go. 

[furrysocks2]

Cheers, guys.

Some of the bright spots in particular look doubled despite aligning them in Registax. I've tried reprocessing but can't seem to get anything I'm happier with than the first.

[A budding astronomer]

Here is my first attempt!  

Also I had that exact same dob as a kid! Got me into astronomy! It's now chilling on my shelf. 

[furrysocks2]

43 minutes ago, A budding astronomer said:

Here is my first attempt!  

Also I had that exact same dob as a kid! Got me into astronomy! It's now chilling on my shelf. 

Nice, Assuming that was with a different scope?

Got a few dozen 50-frame AVIs to sit down to - just finished putting the 8" dob away.

[A budding astronomer]

4 minutes ago, furrysocks2 said:

Nice, Assuming that was with a different scope?

Got a few dozen 50-frame AVIs to sit down to - just finished putting the 8" dob away.

Yes, it was with my current scope, a 114 LCM 4.5" reflector. With a Neximage Burst.