Moon in high Definition Colour

[neil phillips]

Been working on this for ages, I just couldn't get it right. But I am getting closer for sure. After 4 days of processing trying different things. 2000 frames a piece 15 panes  stacked 493 frames

What with the Orion UKs slightly longer focal Length than the 12" And the tiny pixels of the Altair Hypercam 178c  Image scale at prime focus is still quite large. Enabling sharp captures and high colour rendition But with pleasing scale. Seeing was disturbed especially later on.  For the high power shots.

Taken with The Altair Hypercam 224 also in colour but not saturated

 For the mosaic the Colour was just saturated into the image. But it was done quite carefully, with the initial colour balance being set. Using a RGB Histogram graph and set very precisely. So I believe the colours are real in the sense. That all I have done is exaggerated them. They are certainly accurate. Its actually quite amazing to see the moon like this in quite a large full scale, at this illumination. As it shows the colours blending into the lunar terrain, in many different intricacies all over the place. Some blendings of colours are very subtle and others quite bold, often quite starting, to see the moon in such a new and  intricate way. Clearly the field of colour imaging is neglected way too much on the lunar surface. And almost makes mono appear boring in comparison. And this is coming from someone who has done mono for many many years. But I was surprised how some blends of colours melted into the lunar terrain often in unexpected ways, You will see what I mean if you pan around the 95% version. As for processing I was trying to get a very natural detailed balance. But I will save these SERS possibly redoing it as I get better at it.

20%

 

50%

95%

 

3x Barlow

 

 

 

 

2x Barlow

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[knobby]

Quality !

[Debo]

HD for sure, very nice images.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Superb images. Really stunning mosaic and detail shots

[Stu]

As said by others, amazing images, incredible detail

[neil phillips]

Cheer for the positive comments guys. I just added a touch more contrast as SGL makes them brighter. But not on the 95% as it highlights noise.  I think the balance is looking better. The one thing that strikes me. is the colours in certain areas look so natural. its almost as if we should be able to see the moon like this with our eyes. But clearly that's not the case. The Colours almost look planetary. Or like some of the other moons in the solar system. But not our moon. Not sure if others get that perspective ? For those that like a simple pan a flickr 50% link

 

[xtreemchaos]

Amazing shots Neil, outstanding detail and colour. well done.  charl.

[CraigT82]

Outstanding images, worth printing off and going on the wall!

So am I correct in saying you used the 10" F6.3, with the 178C for the full disk and the 224mc for the close up shots?

 

[Freddie]

That's a great set of images there Neil.

[MarsG76]

That is some amazing detail and resolution you captured there, congratulations and well done.

What software and method did you use to process your video stacks? 

[neil phillips]

5 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

5 hours ago, CraigT82 said:

Outstanding images, worth printing off and going on the wall!

So am I correct in saying you used the 10" F6.3, with the 178C for the full disk and the 224mc for the close up shots?

 

Outstanding images, worth printing off and going on the wall!

So am I correct in saying you used the 10" F6.3, with the 178C for the full disk and the 224mc for the close up shots?

 

Hi  Craig, Yes I used the 224 for the closeups  and the 178 for the mosaic.  There was a couple of reasons why I chose the two different cameras for these purposes.. Obviously the 178 is made for large area imaging

But the 224 has very low noise,  the pixel size is slightly larger than the 178 and produces a nice scale with my 3x Barlow.  It also kicks out higher frame rates with my  non SSD laptop.

Of course I could increase the frame rate of the 178 by using ROI. And would get similar results.  But the other considerations I mention particularly the focal length mating of the Barlow's and telescope. Works well from previous tests I found.

[neil phillips]

Cheers Charl And Freddie

[neil phillips]

2 hours ago, MarsG76 said:

That is some amazing detail and resolution you captured there, congratulations and well done.

What software and method did you use to process your video stacks? 

Hi Mars

I used Altair capture for the SER videos .  To make sure I didn't miss a pane  I took screen shots of every SER video and just put them on Imerge and built a low quality mosaic on the fly.

The processing was done on AS/2  493 Frames each for the mosaic and around 600 for the close ups. I captured 2000 frames for the mosaic, and up to 10.000 frames for the close ups

I did wavelet one on Registax  Gaussian blur linear ( top wavelet) about midway. As it produces the finest sharpening. But can also be quite noisy. Hence only using the one wavelet about 50% up With further sharpening done later.

Colour checking and further sharpening was done on Image analyser  I often use just plain sharpening and mild circular blur deconvolution on there. Which was used on the mosaic. I also used Micro contrast sharpening on Astra image, which I did on the higher power shots.  Colour saturation of the mosaic was also done on Astra image. If you have any more specific questions Let me know

Many thanks

[Fozzie]

Fantastic images Neil... a labour of love no doubt! Thank you for taking the time on producing and sharing these.. 

Ta

Fozzie

[Space Cowboy]

Fabulous images Neil! You are the lunar master and it's great to see you exploit these news cams to their fullest potential.

[laudropb]

Very nice set of Lunar images. Lovely detail captured.

[neil phillips]

Glad its been interesting guys, Thanks for the kind comments

[johnfosteruk]

That's a terrific set of images Neil, the most natural colour images I think I've seen, yet with so much variety of colour, and sharp too. Very nice.

[neil phillips]

1 hour ago, johnfosteruk said:

That's a terrific set of images Neil, the most natural colour images I think I've seen, yet with so much variety of colour, and sharp too. Very nice.

Thank you John. I felt the same when I was working on it. I was somewhat taken aback, by the variety of the colours Over the entire lunar surface. Being used to seeing the moon in mono for so many years. At this image scale. Colours seemed to be apparent in small areas with tones and textures that I had no idea even existed. But keeping the natural aspect to it was important for this to be realized fully.  That just completely surprised me. Glad you mentioned this John, As it reflected my own feelings.

 Though it was a lot of trial and error to get the balance right.  I experimented a lot, to end up with the final result. I found even things like sharper wavelets in registax affected the colour saturation quite profoundly. At one point I completely rebuilt it. Only to realize the original registax settings were better. By backtracking on the previous Builds I finally seemed to figure out how to bring it all together as a whole. Some types of sharpening suited the maria and low contrast areas. While finer sharpening suited the edge craters. For a while there I was pulling my hair out. Not getting it right.

What with all the cloud around now. I thought I might as well carry on playing with the data.

So presently I am trying to run each SER into Pipp. Do a quality sort. Throwing away a couple of hundred of the worst frames in the process. Do image tracking and stabilization in Pipp. Then run it again into AS/2 this time with 600 frames to cope with the slight noise generated by sharpening. So far its looking good. But takes forever to do all this. At pane 3.

Not sure if I can improve it, but its always possible. Appreciate the kind words and your perspective.

 

[astroavani]

Great pictures dear Neil!
Since our colleague Jules suggested taking pictures of the same place to compare we decided to mention that I already had an Orion UK VX 10L, I used very little time because soon came the opportunity to buy the C14.
Looking at these photos again I came to the conclusion that yours with the same telescope are better, maybe the camera may have some influence as well as seeing but even so justice should be done to your great work.
If you want to see some that I got here is the link:
http://www.astrobin.com/search/q=Orion+Uk+VX+10L+astroavani&search_type=0&license=0&license=1&license=2&license=3&license=4&license=5&license=6&telescope_type=any&telescope_type=0&telescope_type=1&telescope_type=2&telescope_type=3&telescope_type=4&telescope_type=5&telescope_type=6&telescope_type=7&telescope_type=8&telescope_type=9&telescope_type=10&telescope_type=11&telescope_type=12&telescope_type=13&telescope_type=14&telescope_type=15&telescope_type=16&telescope_type=17&telescope_type=18&telescope_type=19&telescope_type=20&telescope_type=21&telescope_type=22&camera_type=any&camera_type=0&camera_type=1&camera_type=2&camera_type=3&camera_type=4&camera_type=5

[neil phillips]

On ‎23‎/‎12‎/‎2016 at 05:28, astroavani said:

Great pictures dear Neil!
Since our colleague Jules suggested taking pictures of the same place to compare we decided to mention that I already had an Orion UK VX 10L, I used very little time because soon came the opportunity to buy the C14.
Looking at these photos again I came to the conclusion that yours with the same telescope are better, maybe the camera may have some influence as well as seeing but even so justice should be done to your great work.
If you want to see some that I got here is the link:
http://www.astrobin.com/search/q=Orion+Uk+VX+10L+astroavani&search_type=0&license=0&license=1&license=2&license=3&license=4&license=5&license=6&telescope_type=any&telescope_type=0&telescope_type=1&telescope_type=2&telescope_type=3&telescope_type=4&telescope_type=5&telescope_type=6&telescope_type=7&telescope_type=8&telescope_type=9&telescope_type=10&telescope_type=11&telescope_type=12&telescope_type=13&telescope_type=14&telescope_type=15&telescope_type=16&telescope_type=17&telescope_type=18&telescope_type=19&telescope_type=20&telescope_type=21&telescope_type=22&camera_type=any&camera_type=0&camera_type=1&camera_type=2&camera_type=3&camera_type=4&camera_type=5

That's Interesting Avani A lot of my early images were taken with a Phillips webam. So that surprises me. Anyway I will have a look at your link.  What ever the reasons anyone gets quality images. And as you know there are numerous reasons. Your images are always a joy to see.

I Just started a new Lunar website. Its early days still working on it

Many thanks

[astroavani]

Friend Neil, when you have something ready I sent the link from your site so that I can visit.
I also used SPC 900 for a long time, it is interesting to know that we have traveled a very shady way!
I have a website but it's in Portuguese, if you want to visit it, it will be an honor: http://astroavani.no.comunidades.net/

[neil phillips]

11 hours ago, astroavani said:

Friend Neil, when you have something ready I sent the link from your site so that I can visit.
I also used SPC 900 for a long time, it is interesting to know that we have traveled a very shady way!
I have a website but it's in Portuguese, if you want to visit it, it will be an honor: http://astroavani.no.comunidades.net/

Merry Christmas Avani. You have done some great images. But your C14 has produced the best results. Especially with the better cameras we have now. Great images on your website

 

I had a lot of lunar images to use on the new lunar p base website. But most of them were older ones, before I had the better cameras and the 12" Newtonian, as such I decided to just put the best of the most recent images. To keep good quality.

Now I have a new lunar website. I will add to it when I get the chance to get anymore images. I am fairly happy with the quality I have been able to get recently under UK skies. A lot of top imagers prefer to go abroad to get the best quality shots. So I think it important to show what can be achieved in the UK. With equipment that is not very expensive. The SW 12 Newtonian I got secondhand damaged for £100. But even new they are quite cheap. Hope others in the UK are inspired to go forward even with cheaper equipment.

[astroavani]

Great friend Neil, you're absolutely right!
We have to do our best with what we have and where we live most of the time. Outlets require large investments and few can afford them.
In fact I work under an adverse situation, know that my observatory is situated only 100m from the rails of the metropolitan train. There are many lost movies, the loss of quality in the images is great because of the vibration that is transmitted through the floor, that my mount rests on a block of a ton of concrete!
As you said, the important thing is to show what can be done even if the conditions are not the best, it only values our work and makes each victory a reward.
A big hug!